Developement budget are absolutely crazy these days. We all know that, and we all knew they were increasing at an absurd rate, but it’s always nice to have some confirmation, isn’t it?
Step forward gaming journalist and knower of stuff, Jason Schreier, who posted on his Bluesky account that, “…the numbers I’ve heard floating around AAA game dev these days are $300 million or more — sometimes much more!”
In the same thread, Jason points out that these budgets are almost entirely developer salaries.
He also clarifies that these numbers aren’t including the marketing costs. When someone asks if that’s high or low, Jason replies with: “f you sell a game at $70 and pocket $49 on every sale (30% goes to the store, assuming all sales are digital), you’d need to sell more than 6 million copies just to break even on a $300m budget, and that’s before marketing”
If you break down the math further, it means a first-party title from a company like Sony who doesn’t have to share the revenue would still need to sell around 4.5 million copies just to break even. Which is nuts.
But the numbers are believable. Hell, it was only last year that super-flop Concord was reported as costing $400+ million to make. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 apparently cost well over $300+ million to make as well. In other words, Schreier isn’t saying much that the games media and fans didn’t already know, but he’s adding evidence to the pile.
It also depends quite heavily on where teams are based. Jason confirms his numbers are mostly US and Canada based, whereas other countries can produce games for much less.
It’s crazy numbers, though. No wonder the industry is having so many problems.
WGB 