Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare Made Nearly $2 Billion In 2020

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was as much a success story at the start of 2020 as it was at the end, and which should not be surprising at all.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was as much a success story at the start of 2020 as it was at the end, and which should not be surprising at all.

According to a report by SuperData that reviews the entirety of 2020 in terms of earnings, Modern Warfare ended up as the highest-earning premium game of last year. The base game as well as the Warzone mode combined to rake in nearly $2 billion in revenue for publisher Activision or $1.913 billion to be exact.

“[Call of Duty: Modern Warfare] shifted to a hybrid business model in March with the release of the free-to-play Warzone battle royale mode and the lower barrier to entry caused player numbers to jump. Many of these new players not only purchased in-game content but also ended up paying to upgrade to the full game,” reads the report.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, including Warzone, enjoyed six whole seasons of post-release battle pass content. The $2 billion figures covers sales of the base game, upgrading to the complete game, and microtransactions. The new Black Ops Cold War arrived in November 2020 and ended up with $678 million in revenue by December 2020, the same month when the latest Call of Duty installment integrated support for Warzone for the ongoing seventh season.

Warzone was a major boost to the overall player-base. Being a standalone free-to-play mode meant that players could try out the new battle royale game without any investment. Warzone hosts more than 85 million players worldwide and its success has been duly noticed by Activision. The publisher will be supporting Warzone for all Call of Duty installments in the near future as a sort of compulsory companion game with expanded or thematic content plans.

Elsewhere, developer Treyarch has announced the content that will be making its way towards Black Ops Cold War players during the mid-season phase. The new update will go live next week on January 14.

Saqib is a managing editor at segmentnext.com who has halted regime changes, curbed demonic invasions, and averted at least one cosmic omnicide from the confines of his gaming chair. When not whipping his writers into ...