Call of Duty made $800 million in one weekend. Here's what that means.

Consider the last two years: The company rode Call of Duty's potency to new heights following the release of "Call of Duty Mobile" in 2019 -- downloaded by over 650 million users globally, according to Activision -- and the free-to-play battle royale "Warzone" in the spring of 2020. But by last winter the company was dogged by fallout from a sexual discrimination and harassment lawsuit filed that summer by the state of California against Activision Blizzard, the parent company of Activision and the studios that develop Call of Duty. The franchise's annual installment, the World War II-based "Vanguard," also fell short of sales expectations and stock prices plunged from a high point of $103 per share in February 2021 to $56.94 on Dec. 1 that same year. The company announced the following month it would be acquired by Microsoft.