It Was a Record Year for Call of Duty

It was a very successful year for the Call of Duty series. The brand managed to break a number of records, earning its publishers at Activision a lot of money.

IN A NUTSHELL:

Last quarter and 2020 in general were record-breaking for the Call of Duty brand;
Player count remained high, reaching 128 million in Q4;
Sales of paid titles and microtransaction revenue increased significantly.

Yesterday, Activision presented the financial report summarizing the last quarter, as well as the entire last year. The document contains some interesting information about the Call of Duty series. It turns out that the last twelve months were a record period for the franchise.

The monthly number of active players remained steady at more than a hundred million, with 128 million in the fourth quarter of 2020 (compared to the last quarter of 2019, the number of users increased by 70%, and the time spent in the games was more than doubled). We're talking about players across all platforms and CoD installments, though the biggest part of that group was those playing the free-to-play Call of Duty: Warzone and Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War, released in November.

The brand also saw "double-digit increases" in revenue, with the growing popularity of microtransactions playing a big part in this, with 50% more money earned from them year-on-year in the last quarter. The first season of post-release support for Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War (including Warzone-related content) was record-breaking in terms of the number of sold Battle Passes.

Sales of so-called premium products (the report uses this term when referring to paid CoD installments) were also impressive, increasing by 40% in 2020 compared to the previous year. Interest in the new Call of Duty was maintained thanks to the release of the aforementioned first season of support - the number of copies sold in December and January jumped significantly.

The quarter was also record-breaking for Call of Duty Mobile - the game boasted the highest recorded number of players in the West, which translated into a large, double-digit increase in revenue from microtransactions. The title's launch in China can also be considered a success, as it quickly climbed to the top of the most downloaded games lists.