Contracts

Contracts is a multiplayer feature implemented in Call of Duty: Black Ops.

Mechanics
Contracts are available for purchase from the multiplayer menu with CoD Points. Different contracts have different goals, such as achieving a certain number of killstreak rewards or getting a certain amount of kills with a specific weapon. Completing a contract will yield more CoD Points than the player paid for the contract itself. Certain contracts also reward experience upon completion. These are generally the harder ones, such as calling in attack dogs or getting 8 kills without dying. The higher difficulty of the contract, the higher payout upon completion. Contracts can be very important for getting CoD Points because the hardest ones cost about 300 and award 3000 points and the easiest ones are basically free CoD Points because they are very simple (Earn 20 kills). Therefore, it is adviced to always have at least 1, if not 3 active.

Contracts expire eventually. Once players accept the contract, they have a certain amount of time to fulfill it. This is generally either forty minutes or one hour, depending on the difficulty of the contract. The timer only counts down when the player is an active part of the game. (i.e. time spent dead waiting for the next round in Search and Destroy, or waiting for a HQ to be destroyed is not counted.) Also, match-specific contracts' time limits will only count down when alive in that particular game mode. For example, players will not lose time on a Team Deathmatch Contract if they play in Domination. Contracts are not carried across playlists, so a Team Deathmatch contract will not expire if the player plays a TDM match on the Barebones or Hardcore playlists.

There are three different categories of Contracts: Mercenary contracts involve kills and killstreaks in general, Operations contracts involve match related wins (such as 'Win two games of Capture the Flag'), and Specialist contracts, which are mostly specific to certain weapons or perks (Get 4 headshots with the AUG ). Players can have no more than three Contracts, one from each category, active at any time. Selecting a new Contract removes an existing Contract of the respective category; should the contract be incomplete, the player's COD points are not refunded. The available set of Contracts changes hourly. Purchased Contracts can still be completed after this daily update as long as the time spent alive in-game has not run out.

Payouts of contracts are always larger than the purchase price and may also give out XP. This creates a risk-reward factor where players have the chance to earn a higher amount of COD Points than they have spent upon completion, but run the risk of losing their COD Points should the Contract expire.

For the majority of contracts, you shuld never really 'Run N Gun' and go for a more tactical approach.

Mercenary contracts
Contracts for getting kills and killstreaks.

Operations contracts
Contracts for specific game modes and playlists.

Specialist contracts
Contracts for headshots, secondary weapons, Grenades, and special objectives.

Trivia

 * The contracts available to be purchased are changed every 24 hours.
 * If the player is rewarded with XP, the amount will be the same as the number of CoD points awarded.
 * The contract "Smells like...Victory" is a reference to the movie .
 * "Tears Taste So Sweet" could be a reference to South Park: Imaginationland, where Cartman says this.
 * If the player buys a contract, but then replaces it with another, the first one bought will be counted as expired.
 * The Wii contains only around 30 contracts in all at one time - this is likely due to unnecessary RAM it would use.
 * The contract "My Little Friend" is a reference to the movie , where Al Pacino's character says "Say hello to my little friend!" while holding an M203.
 * The contract "Machine Gun Lamia" is a reference to Mark Lamia, an employee at Treyarch.