As expected, Activision revealed in a quarterly earnings call on Thursday that 2020 brought the biggest year for Call of Duty in terms of both profit and player base. With the introduction of both Warzone and Black Ops Cold War, the franchise reportedly managed to net over 250 million users last year, resulting in other notable milestones.
In the earnings call, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick claimed that together, Modern Warfare, Black Ops Cold War, Call of Duty: Mobile and Warzone, gathered a total of over 100 million active users each month in 2020. He also noted that this achievement helped the franchise already generate over $27 billion in revenue since its debut in 2003.
Out of all its current titles, Activision appears most impressed with Warzone, with Kotick declaring it to be “central to our future content planning,” where fans come together to see “the latest in the franchise offerings.” Expanding on this idea, the company assured its commitment to integrating material from future core titles into the battle royale.
The earnings call did not disclose how much the publisher made solely from the free-to-play game, but it was said that over $4.85 billion was amassed from microtransactions throughout all of Activision’s published titles in 2020. A key part in these sales recently seems to have been the latest Season One Battle Pass for Black Ops Cold War and Warzone, as it was revealed to be the best-selling season pass in franchise history.
Despite this first season coming to a close, the publisher is surely looking for its Battle Pass to continue rapidly selling, especially after the recent release of more Season One content.
