A former Call of Duty designer has argued that developers should get royalties when older games are ported to new systems, saying it's "hard to watch" Xbox make money from the recently released and hugely successful Black Ops 1 and 2 ports on PlayStation.
Former Treyarch level designer Gavin Goslin took to LinkedIn to discuss the PS5 and PS4 re-releases, which he said amounted to Microsoft and Activision "printing money off of work completed over a decade ago."
The pair of games reportedly sold 11.2 million copies combined in July, earning around $435 million in one month, according to estimates from Alinea Analytics (thanks, VGC). “The recent Black Ops 1 and Black Ops 2 digital drops on PlayStation proved a couple of things,” Goslin said. “First, today’s gaming landscape is starved for the tight, high-quality experiences we used to get. Second, these legacy titles are still massive money-makers for Activision and Microsoft.
“Despite being basic $40 digital re-releases with zero new features, both titles immediately shot into the Circana U.S. Top 10 for weekly active users. They are printing money off of work completed over a decade ago.
“As a developer who actually worked on both Black Ops and Black Ops 2, seeing these charts is bittersweet. I poured my life into those games, spending countless, brutal hours in crunch alongside an incredibly talented team to make sure they were perfect.
“Seeing our blood, sweat, and tears still dominating the charts in 2026 is amazing, but its (sic) hard to watch the suits rake in giant financial windfalls from our old code while the actual creators don’t see a dime of it.”
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