Call of Duty passes $40 billion in lifetime revenue
The franchise's total places it among the most lucrative videogame series, with Black Ops 3 still its best-selling entry.
Activision's Call of Duty franchise has reached $40 billion in lifetime revenue, a figure Xbox CEO Asha Sharma announced while praising Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, which she called one of the most celebrated entries in the series' 24-year history. The article puts that total behind Mario and Pokémon among the most lucrative videogame franchises, and works out an average of roughly $4.76 million earned per day over the series' run. Sales are led by the older Black Ops entries, with Black Ops 3 at over 43 million copies and Modern Warfare (2019) close behind at over 41 million. Modern Warfare 2 (2022) holds the strongest launch, earning $1 billion in 10 days and logging 200 million hours played, and it was the first Call of Duty on Steam since Call of Duty: WW2 in 2017.
Why it matters
For readers following the games business, the figure is a clear measure of how durable a single franchise can be over more than two decades. Its strongest sales have come from older entries rather than the newest ones, and the Modern Warfare 2 (2022) launch shows how much revenue can arrive in the first days of a release. Together these points show that a long-running series can keep earning at scale.
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