{"id":4592,"date":"2014-01-23T12:30:11","date_gmt":"2014-01-23T17:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.nccomputertech.com\/?p=4592"},"modified":"2014-01-23T12:30:11","modified_gmt":"2014-01-23T17:30:11","slug":"how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-a-video-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/2014\/01\/23\/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-a-video-game\/","title":{"rendered":"How Much Does It Cost to Make a Video Game?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

You pay $60 for many of the new games you play, but how much does a blockbuster game cost to make? Although it is a seemingly simple question, it is actually incredibly difficult to answer. Of all the opaque video game industry questions, this is perhaps the most opaque. Many in the industry don’t even know the budgets of games. It is not unusual for developer working on a big-budget game to have no idea of the game’s budget.<\/p>\n

Publishers and developers almost never release information on budgets of their games, and publicly traded companies just combine all of their production costs in investor reports, giving little insight into individual game costs. Most commonly, the numbers we see circulated are often guesses from writers or analysts. So budget numbers could vary wildly: one place might say $60 million, another might say $15 million.<\/p>\n

When we do get specific numbers, it is often only the development or marketing costs, which do not necessarily provide a complete picture of a game’s entire budget of development, distribution and marketing costs. Also, specific numbers communicated to the public may not be accurate: like the film industry, it is possible for accounting to play tricks with budgeting to change the appearance of things. In 2009, EA executive Rich Hilleman indicated in a speech that his company “now typically spends two or three times as much on marketing and advertising as it does on developing a game.” This formula is not necessarily applicable to every potential blockbuster game\u2014a \\”AAA game\\”, in gaming parlance\u2014or to every company, but it is fair to say the break-even point for the average AAA game is well above the development budget. Companies also need to recoup marketing and other expenses.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There is no question, however, that the cost to make a AAA games in going up across the board. Last summer, when Kotaku editor-in-chief Stephen Totilo talked to Sony’s head of worldwide development, Shuhei Yoshida, about game budgets, Yoshida said budgets for top-tier PS4 games would be “slightly larger” than the $20 to $50 million price range he estimated as the development cost for “top PS3 games.” Four years ago, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot estimated that the average production budget for the generation of games following Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 would be $60 million. In an 2012 investor report, Take-Two admitted some of its “top titles” cost in excess of $60 million for development alone.<\/p>\n

Below, I have a list, pulled from public sources as a first attempt to get a comprehensive sense of how much money the world\\’s biggest and most expensive games cost. All the information presented below comes from publicly available sources and all figures should be viewed with appropriate skepticism given the murkiness I described above, though I have tried as hard as possible to find numbers I believe to be accurate.<\/p>\n

Eagle-eyed readers may notice the following list lacks some of the more prominent numbers from the past few years, and that is intentional\u2014many of those are rather specious. Leslie Benzies\\’ widely circulated $100 million development budget for Grand Theft Auto IV was simply an estimate, and according to The Sunday Times article the number came from, Benzies did not actually know how much the game cost and just “[hazarded] a guess.”<\/p>\n

With that sort of admission, I can’t help but take The Scotman’s claim of a ~\u00a3170 million development and marketing spend for Grand Theft Auto V with a grain of salt. Following an incident in which The Wall Street Journal retracted claims that Starcraft II cost $100 million to develop, Chris Sigaty, a producer on the game, told Gamereactor that, unlike most companies, Blizzard doesn’t have any sort of set budget for their games, and spends as much as is necessary to make the games the company wants to make.<\/p>\n

Here are budget numbers for a select number of games. When possible, I have indicated whether it is development, marketing or combined costs.<\/p>\n

Full Story: How Much Does It Cost to Make a Video Game? – TechSpot<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You pay $60 for many of the new games you play, but how much does a blockbuster game cost to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9,10],"tags":[154,403],"class_list":["post-4592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-software","category-technology","tag-budget","tag-games"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/papNkV-1c4","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5738,"url":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/2014\/06\/13\/pc-gaming-is-on-the-rise-in-the-console-vs-pc-race-it-looks-like-pc-is-surging-ahead\/","url_meta":{"origin":4592,"position":0},"title":"PC gaming is on the rise: In the console vs. PC race, it looks like PC is surging ahead","author":"NCCT","date":"June 13, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Since our last video game survey, the industry has undergone some major changes, including the debut of both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. 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We will dive into the businessmen, engineers, programmers, and companies involved in the rise and fall\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Hardware"","block_context":{"text":"Hardware","link":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/category\/hardware\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/xCP1Ld6NX-w\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6741,"url":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/2014\/10\/30\/youtube-opens-up-60-fps-support-for-all-game-clips-look-incredible\/","url_meta":{"origin":4592,"position":3},"title":"YouTube opens up 60 FPS support for all, game clips look incredible","author":"NCCT","date":"October 30, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"YouTube officially added support for 60 frames per second videos back in June yet up to this point, the option was limited to select video partners. 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