Former developer says Black Ops ports should pay royalties to creators
TL;DR
Former Treyarch level designer Gavin Goslin says the original developers of Black Ops and Black Ops 2 should receive royalties from the successful July PS4 and PS5 ports.
Black Ops · official art via IGDBActivision released PS4 and PS5 ports of Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2 on July 9. The games are $40 digital re-releases with no new features, according to former Treyarch level designer Gavin Goslin. Reports say the titles sold an estimated 11.2 million copies combined in July, earning around $435 million that month. Circana charts show Black Ops 2 was the best-selling game in the US for July 2026.
Goslin says it is hard to watch Activision and Microsoft make money from work completed over a decade ago while the original creators do not receive any money. He stated that if executives receive bonuses from the revenue of these legacy titles, that wealth should be shared retroactively with the developers. Activision CMO Tyler Bahl says the success of the ports took the company by surprise.
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