Call Of Duty: Warzone Sees Huge Spike In Players And Revenue

Activision boasted a big second quarter in its financial results, driven in part by the rapid growth of its free-to-play Call of Duty: Warzone. The spin-off from last year's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare reached more than 75 million players to date, according to the company's second-quarter 2020 financial report. It appears plenty of those players are interested in spending cash, as well. With Warzone getting updated over time, it should remain a major revenue source for years to come. That could include content from the unannounced CoD 2020, too.

That's the first updated player count we've heard since it was riding high on its explosive first month with 50 million players. The growth over the last few months has been slower since its debut, but that's not surprising in itself, and another 25 million is still a huge success.

The success of Warzone has had a knock-on effect with Modern Warfare as well. Activision Blizzard said that Modern Warfare has added more players outside of a launch quarter than ever before, mostly due to players upgrading from Warzone. The company has already specified that Warzone will continue to evolve with content from future Call of Duty campaign releases. A tease in the game even could be a sign of what's to come from this year's installment, likely a new take on the Black Ops series.

For the quarter ending June 30, 2020, Activision Blizzard reported net revenues of $1.93 billion, up from $1.4 billion for the same period last year. Digital revenue grew to $1.59 billion, compared to $1.09 billion for the same period. The company's earnings have come under scrutiny recently, in regards to both the pay for CEO Bobby Kotick and a more recent pay-sharing campaign from Blizzard employees.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone are currently preparing to launch Season 5, which will include new maps, some big changes to the Verdansk Battle Royale map, and more. Fans have been speculating that Warzone will also serve as a teaser or even tie into the announcement of the next Call of Duty, which is rumored to be a Black Ops game.