Managing the Call of Duty IP is not easy

The Call of Duty series is Activision’s biggest IP, not including Blizzard’s titles, and the publisher puts a staggering number of resources into developing it. According to Activision’s exec VP Dave Stohl, over 500 developers among four or five studios work on the series.

Activision has invested $2 billion in new game initiatives, and it’s fairly obvious Call of Duty is a huge part of that cost, and when Vince Zampella and Jason West left Infinity Ward, taking dozens of employees with them, Activision had to act quickly as lawsuits were filed. While all this was going on, Sledgehammer Games was brought in to help what was left of Infinity Ward to complete Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which will be released on November 8th.

During all of this, Beachhead Studios was secretly working on Call of Duty social networking software Call of Duty Elite, and Treyarch was developing Call of Duty: Black Ops.

Coordinating this mess is Stohl’s job, who joked, “It takes a village in this case.”

However, Stohl won’t reveal anything about where Call of Duty is headed, but did state John “Soap” MacTavish and John Price, the main characters of Modern Warfare, are “two of the most iconic characters in gaming,” which seems to hint of future games starring the pair.