The absurd development costs of AAA video games isn’t exactly an industry secret at this point. Back in June 2023, a report estimated that the budgets for The Last of Us Part II and Horizon Forbidden West were around $200 million per title. However, that’s not even close to a recent report which claims that three previously released Call of Duty games apparently had budgets double or triple that amount.
A court filing reviewed by Game File reportedly blows the lid open on the budgets for three Call of Duty titles. Activision’s head Call of Duty creative Patrick Kelly revealed the total budgets of the games in the court filing, confirming that 2015’s Black Ops 3 apparently had a budget of around $450 million and took developer Treyarch over three years to develop. For 2019’s Modern Warfare, the budget was reportedly $640 million. Topping it off, the budget for 2020’s Black Ops Cold War was reportedly a staggering $700 million.
The court filing was filed on 23 December as part of an ongoing lawsuit aimed at Activision Blizzard alleging that these three specific Call of Duty games played a part in influencing the mass shooter of the Robb Elementary shooting in Uvalde, Texas back in 2022.
There’s no way to confirm or verify if these budgets are actually accurate, though if Activision is using them as a line of defence in court – perhaps to sway the idea that video games have any direct correlation to real-world violence – then we can invest some trust in the filing’s legitimacy.
Meanwhile, the rest of the gaming industry remains pretty tight-lipped about the true development costs of video games, especially in the AAA scene. We can only estimate from reports, rumours and speculation that companies are spending above and beyond even major Hollywood movies on the development of games, which to be fair, takes several years and resources to make. Take into account the additional costs for marketing and it’s no wonder that AAA budgets are ballooning at such an alarming rate – perhaps former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden had a point.
Source: Game File
