Activision Blizzard’s latest quarterly revenue report has been released, enabling us to put a dollar figure on the success of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and its free-to-play battle royale spinoff, Warzone. The number is unsurprisingly huge–including a growth of $536 million in year-on-year in-game spending driven mostly by Modern Warfare.
Overall Activision Blizzard saw an increase in in-game spending of $596 million when comparing the three months leading up to June 30 with the equivalent period last year. The large majority of that ($536 million) comes from Activision, while Blizzard saw a $19 million increase primarily driven by World of Warcraft, and King increased by $41 million thanks to the Candy Crush franchise.
The report attributes the huge increase in spending to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, which was released in October 2019, compared to October 2018’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. It also includes Warzone in that–the free-to-play battle royale spinoff launched in March this year. While Call of Duty: Mobile released in the same period as Modern Warfare, the report indicates that the latter did most of the heavy lifting when it comes to microtransactions.
Of course, the quarter in question also covers a period where many people worldwide were stuck in lockdown, which resulted in increased spending on games across the board.
An earlier earnings report showed Modern Warfare easily overtaking its predecessor Black Ops 4, well before Warzone had even been announced. Modern Warfare looks to be a gaming behemoth–in more than just the amount of space it’ll take up on your hard drive.
