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List of most expensive video games to develop
- edm0nd 4y agoSaved you a click, the top 5 are: - Star Citizen = 419M - Cyberpunk 2077 = 331M - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 = 316M - Final Fantasy VII = 135-245M - Halo 2 = 230M
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- SnooSux 4y agoStar Citizen is gonna be so good if it ever comes out
- edm0nd 4y agoSeems like a great game from the gameplay I've watched but for 500M and no end in sight? Seems more like an absurd waste imo.
- Melatonic 4y agoIt has an insane scope - part of what makes it so polarizing - in the end it will end up as an absurd waste or the Star Wars of gaming.
- q-big 4y ago> in the end it will end up as an absurd waste or the Star Wars of gaming. Why not something like because the funding dries off, they will put together the parts that are somewhat complete into a game that will turn out to be a quite average game with great graphics. Fans will at the end still stand by their position that Star Citizen could have been so much more. Non-fans will say point out the averageness (beside the graphics) that was not the slightest worth the absurd amount of money.
- xnyan 4y agoThe problem with Star Citizen is that its development is optimized for attracting new funding, which means after half a billion dollars and more than a decade of development, they still have a game in alpha stage that has no compelling gameplay at all. If you're looking for cool looking videos, beautiful screenshots and lots of bold promises that to date have always been broken, Star Citizen is a fantastic thing.
- Salgat 4y agoThey're taking on so much technical debt that most of what they create will either be scrapped or no longer considered cutting edge by the time the game releases. They have a serious case of scope creep.
- jandrese 4y agoStar Citizen seems like more of a funding scam than an actual game at this point. The game is "almost done" just need a few million more to finish it! It's like that Oak Island fortune or Twentieth Century Motor Car. Release just enough of a demo to make people excited, but keep actual development to a minimum to drag out investors as long as possible.
- xeromal 4y agoI wouldn't call it a scam because it is functional. It's just nowhere near done. It honestly was just too ambitious.
- jandrese 4y agoThat's how they get you though. Show off a compelling demo and promise the world, but never deliver. Star Citizen is the Moller Skycar of video games.
- xeromal 4y agoNo man's sky was like that but was redeemed so I'm hoping they're more like that.
- Ekaros 4y agoI think No Man's Sky was more like Molyneux product. Somewhat there but entirely over hypped. It was thin, but entirely working product by my understanding. Less than promised at the launch though.
- waste_monk 4y agoThey're continuing to sell the game, ships, etc. despite it being clear that they do not have the ability to deliver on even a tiny fraction of what they've promised. It might be vaguely functional in the sense of having a 3d model viewer for ships with a thin veneer of gameplay tacked on, but that is nowhere near the original kickstarter goals [1] let alone the scope creep that has occurred in the ~decade since. Continuing to accept payment for something they are incapable of delivering (and they are either deliberately misleading customers or so grotesquely incompetent at project/business management that they should not be in charge of a child's lemonade stand let alone more than half a billion USD in funds) is what makes it a scam. [1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen
- tmtvl 4y agoIs FFVII adjusted for inflation? Because that seems like a lot for a PSX game.
- mminer237 4y agoYes, it's $80M–145M in 1997 dollars.
- Ancalagon 4y agoI thought halo infinite would be up there
- Ocerge 4y agoShadow of the Tomb Raider being so high is very surprising to me. I remember it being an average AAA game that sort of came and went without much fanfare.
- aidenn0 4y agoAccording to this, E.T. for the Atari VCS cost more than Half-Life 2, after adjusting for inflation.
- KindAndFriendly 4y agoWhich is noteworthy since the game development was done allegedly over the span of a few weeks [1] ( and hence it was a flop since it was too rushed ). But I'm wondering how you can - in 1982 - spend 22M on game development over a few weeks? Maybe the licensing costs for the ET brand were the biggest expense there... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._the_Extra-Terrestrial_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._the_Extra-Terrestrial_(vi...
- vlunkr 4y agoCould also be that the marketing cost is included on that one. It was made by one guy in less than one month, so it's certainly not the actual development.
- lkbm 4y agoThat article led me to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_crash_of_1983 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_crash_of_1983 which I didn't know about, but is very impressive.
- bena 4y agoReally, that's amazing. It's a seminal point in video game history. It effectively divides the era of American driven development and Japanese driven development. Like, I knew this day was coming, when events stop being common culture and start becoming history, but it's still wild to see.
- lkbm 4y agoI could believe it was well-known when it happened, but I suspect that most people not in the industry didn't know, or barely noticed. By ten years later, it seems quite unlikely most people would know. I'm 40, so I was ~1 when it happened. If it had happened when I was 15 I likely would've been paying attention, but by 1997 it was ancient history.
- spywaregorilla 4y agoSuper Mario Bros 3 is an amusing entry towards the bottom. 0.8M in dev costs (12 people on the credits). 25M in marketing costs. 60M total in todays dollars.
- adamwk 4y agoI'm surprised how many old games are on here. I think a common refrain is how high development costs have become, but except the outliers, Cyberpunk 2077 and Star Citizen, there doesn't look to be a big development cost difference between modern and old games.
- VyseofArcadia 4y agoIt also seems like with a couple of outliers, marketing costs have outpaced development costs.
- cavanasm 4y agoI think a huge aspect of that is simply that very few games have their budgets disclosed.
- seanalltogether 4y agoSurely League of Legends and World of Warcraft should be at the top of this list?
- awb 4y agoSurprising that no Blizzard games made the list
- Vvector 4y agoWoW $60m for initial release, $200m a couple expacks later. The list is missing many games.
- Tangurena2 4y agoAccording to this: $63M to develop the original release or World of Warcraft, plus at least $200M more for all the subsequent releases. https://mmos.com/editorials/most-expensive-mmorpgs-ever-developed https://mmos.com/editorials/most-expensive-mmorpgs-ever-deve... Total costs of $200M as of 2008: https://www.wired.com/2008/09/total-operating/ https://www.wired.com/2008/09/total-operating/
- swivelmaster 4y agoInitial development cost of LoL was, I believe, $12-$15m - not very much. The amount they've poured into it since then, of course, is astronomical.
- dang 4y agoOngoing related thread: Star Citizen has passed half a billion in funding - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32916496 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32916496 - Sept 2022 (17 comments)
- LastMuel 4y agoI feel like this whole thing is mischaracterizing funding for cost. They are not the same and Star Citizen's cost, I think, is mostly unknown. Saying that they've raised 500 million (funding) isn't the same as saying 500 million has been spent on development (cost).
- abhayhegde 4y agoAfter reading this I digged up the size of video game industry. It is a staggering $190+ billion enterprise now! I wonder what is the ROI on these infamous games? Would they be multibagger opportunities for the producers? Not that they have to be. Also, most of the gaming industry caters to mobiles and smaller screens given their sheer number. With the ever increasing computing capabilities of mobiles, I wonder how much more monetisation does it lead to in the medium-to-long term future?
- swivelmaster 4y agoAs an example, GTA V is the fastest entertainment product to reach a billion dollars in lifetime revenue. That was shortly after it launched, and it's been out for YEARS now. The ROI on that game (plus GTA Online) is staggering.
- vavooom 4y agoHadn't realized it, but with a budget of 331M, Cyberpunk 2077 almost doubled it's investment already. From the game's Wikipedia page: "It had the biggest digital game launch of all time, selling 10.2 million digital units, and grossing $609 million in digital sales as of 31 December 2020".
- nagyf 4y ago> It had the biggest digital game launch of all time Not hard to do when you lie to people. They simply lied in their marketing about the game in so many aspects. Many features missing that were "promised". A lot of people pre-ordered the game (including me) because we believed their marketing. Then we got a buggy, unplayable game at launch which was missing half the things they lied about. Thank god I was able to get a refund from Sony.
- SketchySeaBeast 4y agoI'm not sure what they lied about (I've noticed that people took the online hype as promises and then were unhappy when it was released without the speculated items), but it was one of my favourite games when it came out on PC and it has only gotten better. It's a shame you had such a bad initial impression.
- petersellers 4y agoThe person you replied to mentioned a refund from Sony, so we can assume then that they got the PS4 version. Unfortunately, the last-gen console versions of the game were horrendously broken and had major performance problems. I don't blame people for being mad at CDPR for releasing the game on those platforms - the game was clearly not designed for the older platforms and the company took a lot of flak for releasing it on them. I say all this as someone who has enjoyed the game immensely on PC - it's one of my favorite single player games of all time. It's just a shame that CDPR got greedy and tried to sell it on platforms that couldn't handle it.
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- trey-jones 4y agoSerious Question: Does CoD:MW2 (2009) make more money by spending half as much on marketing? This is the most lopsided example near the top of the list by far. Is it accurate? 80% of budget to marketing? This is one of the biggest problems with the global economy today as I perceive it (I don't claim any expertise). Companies spending more money telling me how good their product is, instead of spending it on making a good product. I understand why, to some extent, but 80% is a whole lotta nothing!
- polishdude20 4y agoIn a way you can think of it like this: Do I spend money to make the thing marginally better for people who would probably already buy it? Or would I spend more money so more people hear about it and buy it? Once a product I have works to some reasonable standard, I would love to have a bigger audience that knows about it.
- trey-jones 4y agoOf course you would, as a producer/seller. But for consumers it's terrible. My perception is that "some reasonable standard" has just gotten lower and lower. Corners are cut on quality of personnel, including training, as well as component materials. And the consumers lose. Partly because for many consumers price is the most important factor in purchase decisions, and partly because there is so much marketing (including misinformation and disinformation) from every direction that consumers can't have much of a hope of making informed decisions anyway.
- Gigachad 4y agoGames seem consistently far far better than what we had before. Not only from tech improvements, but budget allocated for building the product is higher than ever before.
- trey-jones 4y agoI guess that's your opinion. I'm not seeing the same thing though. And how must it feel as a dev on a game when marketing gets 4x your budget?
- guitarlimeo 4y agoThis list is missing Red Dead Redemption 2 which could be the top1 on the list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dead_Redemption_2#Development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dead_Redemption_2#Developm... "Analyst estimations place the game's combined development and marketing budget between US$370 million and US$540 million, which would make it one of the most expensive video games to develop." EDIT: Noticed the unofficial figures list now, and RDR2 is there. Nevermind!
- dijit 4y agoTerrifyingly, I worked on a game (and I worked with the PnL for that game); which would be third on this list. Given that game development costs are largely unknown to the general public, I seriously doubt that it would have sustained the "3rd place" ranking: I can't help but feel this document isn't really worth very much with that in mind.
- djmips 4y agoI agree - this information is only a sampling and a lot of it is guesses.
- mappu 4y agoThe "100+" number is too low for Genshin Impact - $100mn was the initial development cost for 1.0, but since then the game map has grown ~3x in size, the story ~3x longer, many live events etc. See https://www.pcgamesn.com/genshin-impact/cost-most-expensive https://www.pcgamesn.com/genshin-impact/cost-most-expensive and https://www.thegamer.com/genshin-impact-most-expensive-game-ever-made/ https://www.thegamer.com/genshin-impact-most-expensive-game-... which puts the current number at $500 million.
- xeromal 4y agoI feel like Halo Infinite is missing. I believe it cost about 200M to develop
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- togs 4y agoDid FFXV spend about 15 years in development
- adjagu 4y agoAccording to Wikipedia[0]: "The game's development began in 2006 as a PlayStation 3 spin-off titled Final Fantasy Versus XIII"... "After a development period of six years, it was changed to the next mainline title in the series in 2012". [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_XV https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_XV
- wan_ala 4y agoWhy would ET cost that much money?
- rektide 4y agoNeither stadia.dev nor Amazon Lumberyard (nee CryEngine) are "games" but I would not be shocked to find either pretty well in the top 10. (and Epic's been at Fortnite for a long time; surely that must be on the list somewhere?) I really think there's huge opportunities for server-centric gaming, where things like lighting don't need to be run per client. I'm far from scoffing, I think there's huge potential. But it also hasn't really materialized, yet, under these banners.
- csense 4y agoI'm surprised Duke Nukem Forever [1] didn't make the list. Background for younger readers whose gaming years didn't include the mid-1990's: The first two Duke Nukem games were fairly nondescript 2D platformers, but the third entry in the series, Duke Nukem 3D, was a first-person shooter, quite technically impressive and enormously popular. Duke Nukem 3D was one of the three most influential early first-person shooters that defined a genre that's still quite popular today. (The other two major pioneering games, of course, were Wolfenstein 3D and the original Doom.) Duke Nukem Forever, the fourth entry in the series, is a legendary tale of development hell. Development started in 1996, the same year as Duke Nukem 3D was released, and the game was announced in 1997. The game was finally released in 2011, after numerous staffing changes, reboots, and engine changes (3D graphics technology changed enormously in that time frame; Duke Nukem 3D ran with software renderering in MS-DOS on 486's and Pentiums in the tens to low hundreds of megahertz, while the PC's of 2011 were basically quite similar to modern machines with multicore, multi-GHz CPU's, gigabytes of memory, and GPU's with programmable shaders). Duke Nukem Forever can't have been cheap to develop, just due to the sheer length of time involved. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Nukem_Forever https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Nukem_Forever
- wink 4y agoJust yesterday someone on IRC brought up the decades old joke "Which will release first? Duke Nukem Forever or GNU/Hurd?" and yeah, DNF did actually ship.
- bri3d 4y agoMy understanding of Realtime Worlds (hence the name) and All Points Bulletin is that management were far too ambitious. All Points Bulletin, one of the more expensive games made even to date, was actually only a side project - a tailored-down, "get to market" attempt at shoveling a product out the door to fund a ludicrous "reality simulator" pipe dream. It showed, as conceptually the game could have been good but it felt completely unfinished to play and was critically panned.
- autoexec 4y agoI'd like a list like this but showing how much money was actually spent and required for the game that was released as opposed to how much money was wasted on development hell, marketing, licensing, publisher screw-ups, overinflated salaries, and failed attempts. A list of companies that managed to waste obscene amounts of money with or without ever producing a finished game is nice, but I was hoping for list that showcased the games which incorporated the most expensive technologies, talent, and resources to achieve something impressive that couldn't have been done for any less at the time. Such a list probably isn't possible without a lot more honesty in accounting than most game publishers would allow for, but it'd be nice to see the games which really leveraged everything they had to create something amazing for its time by overcoming the massive costs it required.
- pcwalton 4y agoGame developers do not, as a rule, have "overinflated salaries". They generally work below market rate.
- autoexec 4y agoThe developer for ET (one of the listed games) got $200,000 for 5 weeks work (in 1982 money), a flight on a private jet to meet Steven Spielberg, and an all-expenses-paid vacation to Hawaii. Game developers with "overinflated salaries" probably won't be too hard to find when you're talking about the games with the highest development costs.
- djmips 4y agoThat's a horrible cherry picked case from a time when you could only have one developer - and this is dwarfed by modern development costs. You just can't compare this one outlier to make any kind of statement.
- autoexec 4y agoAll of these games are outliers and extreme cases. The idea that the games with the highest development costs would likely have involved people who were overpaid seems unsurprising. The fact that the first game in that list I clicked on brought me to an article saying that one developer (reportedly) was hugely overpaid was just convenient.