Stephen Totilo - 2020's Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War cost $700 million to develop across its "lifecycle" (+ marketing)

ChorizoPicozo said:
Xbox/MS really bit off more than they could chew. I don't think Xbox can take a completely hands-off approach and expect CoD to chug along willy-nilly.

If I were an executive at MS, I would be completely appalled by the budget and the sheer number of people required to keep the CoD factory running strong (especially in the context of Xbox weak ass position/numbers)
Click to expand...
Certainly seems a precarious position. I bet Bobby and his chums bit their fucking hands off when they offered 70 billion smackers.
 
As for Concord dont forget the acquisition cost to buy out Firewalk too, and then severance pay on top of it.

Give the workers credit. They milked that job for years making good salaries for a crap product.
 
James Sawyer Ford said:
It shouldn't be anywhere near 4/7ths of CoD's budget will almost zero marketing spend and far less headcount/support
Click to expand...

it's not 4/7th of COD's budget, unless you think BO6 cost the same as BOCW, which is highly unlikely. Like I said BO6 is likely a $900M game at least.

So it's less than half.
 
James Sawyer Ford said:
Denial is thinking concord's budget brushes elbows with the most expensive title on the market with the largest marketing spend in the industry
Click to expand...
Dude, let it go. Concord's failure is a $5 billion woke mistake and a humiliation for PlayStation. Hermen should've been fired like in the cartoons:
HDuV5gJ.gif
 
diffusionx said:
it's not 4/7th of COD's budget, unless you think BO6 cost the same as BOCW, which is highly unlikely. Like I said BO6 is likely a $900M game at least.

So it's less than half.
Click to expand...

It shouldn't even be 1/2

We are talking enormous marketing budget for the top selling game every year compared to almost no marketing budget
 
diffusionx said:
Nobody thinks that, because Concord's $400M budget for a 2024 game doesn't come close to a $700M one released in 2020.

If anything these numbers make Concord's look more plausible.
Click to expand...
Wasn't Cold Wars Dev time only 2 years compared to the 8 years for Concord?

I agree if anything this makes Concords numbers way more plausible.
 
HeisenbergFX4 said:
Wasn't Cold Wars Dev time only 2 years compared to the 8 years for Concord?

I agree if anything this makes Concords numbers way more plausible.
Click to expand...

Concord only had 150 devs working it for 24 months. The 8 years nonsense doesn't stop. There were only a dozen people working it in like 2019

CoD has multiple studios working on it at the same time
 
Last edited:
James Sawyer Ford said:
Concord only had 150 devs working it for 24 months. The 8 years nonsense doesn't stop. There were only a dozen people working it in like 2019

CoD has multiple studios working on it at the sane time
Click to expand...
One of the Devs Tweeted that nonsense, did I miss a retraction?

"The game has been in development for around eight years and I've been there for almost five of them," Weisnewski said. "We don't get a lot of Launch Days in our careers so today is special for a ton of reasons. Oblige me some good vibes today."
 
HeisenbergFX4 said:
One of the Devs Tweeted that nonsense, did I miss a retraction?

"The game has been in development for around eight years and I've been there for almost five of them," Weisnewski said. "We don't get a lot of Launch Days in our careers so today is special for a ton of reasons. Oblige me some good vibes today."
Click to expand...

You act like 150 people were working on it for 8 years

That's not what happened, there were 12 employees in 2019


 
rofif said:
And wukong coat 43 million and is graphically more impressive and 100x more creative and varied.
US studios are expensive huh?
Spider man 2 350 mill also
Click to expand...

CoD uses its own developed and maintained engine, so no royalty share with Epic. (Big deal with those sort of sales numbers)

Cold War was also very content rich by the end with a campaign, full multiplayer suite, 2 versions of Zombies (round/mission map based plus an open-world variant using Warzone assets), and a bunch of unique minigames and even emulations of old Activision games.

Oh, and obviously it was loaded with MTX as a full-on GAAS and even began the integration with other franchise entries.

It was extremely self-evidently a fucking huge project.

Oh and at least it ran on Xbox!
 
COD vs Concord

COD budgets = $700m
Copies sold = 30-40 million units
Revenue = $3.5bn(copies sold+mtx)

Concord budgets= $400m
Copies sold = 0
Revenue = $0
 
HeisenbergFX4 said:
One of the Devs Tweeted that nonsense, did I miss a retraction?

"The game has been in development for around eight years and I've been there for almost five of them," Weisnewski said. "We don't get a lot of Launch Days in our careers so today is special for a ton of reasons. Oblige me some good vibes today."
Click to expand...
It didn't exist 8 years ago, neither did the studio, it was just an idea at the time.
I remember reading a bit about it because that always seemed off to me, and there's apparently a post on Discord (it's in here: )
 
Business heads? What is the optimal budget for making a game that figuratively nobody cares about apart from business people who won't play it anyway?
 
That's very expensive for a game whose sole reason to exist is to sell battle passes to the mentally retarded and to let people play Nuketown via their 150gb HDD installs.
 
{insert code here} said:
We really need a clown emoji for some of these takes on here 😂.

Not yours btw lol. Honestly can't tell if this guy's being serious or just fishing for a tag.
Click to expand...

He's been desperately tag fishing for awhile, wanting to be one of the lovable characters here but is just another warrior. Dude couid have made Concord 2 with the time he has spent posting about it on here.

James Sawyer Ford said:
Ok, I don't need to sell you. Basic accounting of headcount and labor cost gets nowhere near $400m

These CoD numbers put things into context
Click to expand...

The CoD numbers are for the entire lifetime of the game and includes marketing. There is no context here. You're trying to tell us because sugar is sweet, the sun is warm. They aren't related.
 
LectureMaster said:
No wonder they feel like one battle pass is not enough. I don't know how this can be sustainable as now games are on Game Pass
Click to expand...
Don't say that too loud. The gamepass die hards wil come in here and mention "engagement numbers" and how Microsoft have billions to spend so they don't lose money!!!

Now just imagine if gaming went down this route... It's completely unsustainable and not what any of us should want for gaming (sub services AND extraordinarily high costs to develop games).
 
Bumblebeetuna said:
The CoD numbers are for the entire lifetime of the game and includes marketing. There is no context here. You're trying to tell us because sugar is sweet, the sun is warm. They aren't related.
Click to expand...

This only bolsters my argument. Concord had zero lifetime post-launch support. Seems you need to understand context better.
 
Meanwhile other games get shit on for dev costs. That's just the normal now folks, accept it
 
//DEVIL// said:
This must be a joke right?

Call of Duty is 10x bigger games than both these games combined.

The same goes for Fortnight. do not compare a mere single-player game to something as big as Call of Duty.
Click to expand...
I don't care how big lady Gaga song is. I have disasterpeace playing in my car.
Wukong sold like 20-30million copies.
Besides, I am talking about quality and creativity compared to cost. Not popularity
 
Clear said:
CoD uses its own developed and maintained engine, so no royalty share with Epic. (Big deal with those sort of sales numbers)

Cold War was also very content rich by the end with a campaign, full multiplayer suite, 2 versions of Zombies (round/mission map based plus an open-world variant using Warzone assets), and a bunch of unique minigames and even emulations of old Activision games.

Oh, and obviously it was loaded with MTX as a full-on GAAS and even began the integration with other franchise entries.

It was extremely self-evidently a fucking huge project.

Oh and at least it ran on Xbox!
Click to expand...
And all of that is still less fun and worse than Wukong which cost - tiny percentage to make.
I don't care of it's single vs multi or other genres. I am purely talking about effective usage of dev money.
the bloated cost of US development is out of control
 
pulicat said:
COD vs Concord

COD budgets = $700m
Copies sold = 30-40 million units
Revenue = $3.5bn(copies sold+mtx)

Concord budgets= $400m
Copies sold = 0
Revenue = $0
Click to expand...
Firewalk shut down too. A one and done studio.

Cold War gamers can still play the game, while the 18 Concord gamers cant.

It was so bad, Sony and Steam auto-refunded gamers and deactivated the game from people's systems. So even if a gamer just wanted to keep the digital game as a souvenir, they couldnt even do that. Sony was so embarrassed at the game they went scorched earth wiping it from existence.

There is a plus side for Concord gamers though. If they were a disc buyer they can flip sealed copies on eBay for $300. A random gamer selling his copy makes more profit on the game than Sony.
 
Last edited:
Just imagine what GTA6 will cost over its lifecycle. It will be multiple billions when it's all said and done.
 
Last edited:
COD has to be the most marketed franchise every year, by far. I wouldn't be shocked if 2/3 of the budget is dedicated towards that. If not, then woof. No way should these games cost more than a couple hundred mil, given how much of the assets are reused every year
 
Last edited:
James Sawyer Ford said:
A basic 4v4 hero shooter is not more expensive than a game that has multiple modes and a cinematic single player game with high production values that's one of the largest IPs on the planet
Click to expand...

Yea those high production cgi videos came for free iam sure. That shit was expensive as fuck and hulst deserved the boot to bring them in. It's insane he got promoted for sbitty decisions like that.
 
They are basically investing more each game but selling roughly the same minus the 30 million one.

Imagine if they just skipped one year altogether, and just put a B team on dlc expansion instead.

Then create actual hype for a new CoD.

I'm so glad they are on gamepass now because I can just play for 2 weeks then uninstall like every title since MW3. First 2 weeks when everyone is learning is always fun but giving them $70 isn't worth it.

Thanks Phil for saving us all so much money.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

  • Locked
Report: Call of Duty Black Ops 6 budget was 450m-$700m
Rumor 
1
561
CyberCali replied
billbil-kin - Two PS5 packs(bundles) with Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 approaching, and cheaply.
2
72
180
mckmas8808 replied
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 | Review Thread
32
4K
SteadyEvo replied
TMNT x Call of Duty cosmetics will cost a total of $90
2
87
3K
ShadyAcshuns replied
  • Locked
DF: Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 - Every console tested
5
746
CyberCali replied
Top Bottom