Call of Duty passes $40 billion in lifetime revenue, making it one of the most-lucrative videogame franchise ever

It's been 22 years, 11 months, 28 days and counting since we were first graced with Call of Duty. Over those two decades the franchise has emerged as one of the most lucrative in videogame history, with Xbox CEO Asha Sharma announcing that it's passed the $40billion revenue mark.

Speaking of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4's success, Sharma reflects: "One of the most celebrated Call of Duty games in its 24-year history, and now $40 billion in lifetime franchise revenue. An incredible milestone. Congrats to the Activision team. And to the players, thank you for being with us."

$40 billion in lifetime revenue places Call of Duty behind goliaths like Mario and Pokémon. It also means that Call of Duty, on average, has earned $4,762,472 a day, which is particularly terrifying if you ask me.

But how it got there is an entirely different question—one that can be answered by the ravenous appetite of consumers in the free market. Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 still sits at the top spot with over 43 million copies sold, with Modern Warfare (2019) comes in a close second with over 41 million copies sold. But by and large, the popularity of Call of Duty is driven by Black Ops, namely its older titles.

The prize for most successful launch, however, has to go to Modern Warfare 2 (2022) which earned $1 billion in just 10 days alongside 200 million hours played. This followed Activision Blizzard's sale to Microsoft, which also meant that Modern Warfare 2 was the first time a Call of Duty game had been on Steam since 2017 with Call of Duty: WW2—it even made it into Steam's top 10 games by concurrent players.

The ridiculous release schedule of one Call of Duty game a year certainly seems to be working for Activision. I doubt it would've been able to pass this landmark without the tireless work of Infinity Ward, Treyarch, Sledgehammer Games, and Raven Software pumping out something new year after year. At this rate I'm pretty sure the Call of Duty franchise will outlive us all. Picture this: the dry arid landscape of an Earth pillaged and then left void of humanity, with the sole proof of our existence being the 15th Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 remaster (2193)—I hope it's good.