Surprising absolutely no one, this year’s re-release of Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2 on PS4 and PS5 have been a resounding success. Having been unavailable in Sony’s ecosystem since the PS4 launched, Activision released basic ports of the games back in July and combined sales surpassed 11 million units. That’s a ton of cash for doing the bare minimum, not to mention it speaks to the demand players still have for older Call of Duty titles. Sadly, that new stream of revenue isn’t being shared with the previous dev team, at least according to longtime level designer Gavin Goslin.

Gavin States It’s ‘Hard to Watch’ Executives Make Bank Off His Hard Work

Yesterday on LinkedIn, veteran Call of Duty level designer Gavin Goslin made a post noting how bittersweet it is to see the success of Black Ops 1 and 2 on PS4/PS5. While happy that the games are still generating that much buzz, he writes, “As a developer who actually worked on both BO1 and BO2, 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 it’s 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.”

Goslin then calls for the wealth to be shared retroactively with the people who helped make the game. This practice of not paying laborers is standard practice in most entertainment industries, especially when working with franchises. The dev team would have received their annual salaries while creating the game, but once it goes on sale, all incoming revenue funnels back into the company and the executives up top. The games’ industry is not like Hollywood where cast and crew will receive residuals for their work (although even that is becoming less common), though it really should be.

What Do These Re-Releases Signify?

One point that Gavin brings up is how the overwhelming success of these re-releases indicates players are starved for “tight, high-quality experiences we used to get.” I agree with that, to an extent. While I am happy the industry is open to more ideas nowadays, playing something like 007 Fight Light recently made me realize that I miss linear action games. Not everything needs to be expansive, in-depth, or even open-ended. Sometimes, you just want to get on the rollercoaster and let the track do its thing. The Call of Duty series used to be excellent at delivering just that, providing players with a 5-7 hour campaign that never overstayed its welcome. Now, the series has open-ended sandbox maps where mission objectives don’t stand out from one another because everything is so similar.

I’m not saying every future Call of Duty game needs to adhere to a rigid structure, but it would be nice to see new ones scale down a bit. I still remember specific moments in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare despite having first played it nearly 20 years ago. For Black Ops 6, however, I can barely remember anything despite having played it just two years ago. That game was even more linear than most recent Call of Duty titles, though it still incorporated open areas.

Last Word on Call of Duty Re-Releases Doing Well

Ultimately, I believe the lesson here is that console manufacturers and publishers have really misunderstood the desire fans have for playing classic games. It tracks that people buying a new console want new experiences, but you can’t throw out past generations as if they are “outdated.” For many, Call of Duty: Black Ops marks the point where they fell in love with the series, and while new entries are still being made 16 years later, they will never replace that original game. Giving players the chance to reexperience that, even at the most basic of levels, is something that should be more common in this industry.