Full post: Exact budgets of video-game productions can be tough to corroborate (more transparency from publishers would be nice!) but the numbers I’ve heard floating around AAA game dev these days are $300 million or more — sometimes much more! — which I think helps explain the current state of the industry
To address some frequently asked questions:
- These are US and Canada productions. If you’re wondering why game X cost so much less, it was probably made elsewhere
- These budgets are almost entirely dev salaries + overheard and have nothing to do with executive compensation (which is mostly stock)
Does it count also the Publisher budget (which usually goes to marketing, advertisement, etc.)?
Haven’t read the article yet, but most likely, yes. Usually this data comes from the publisher themselves as they are the one fronting the money.
Edit : yep. Though it doesn’t include marketing, which can be in the 9 figures range too for these games…
Maybe stop locating every damn AAA studio in “most expensive city in the world, USA” too. Or allow us to work from home at least. I’d happily take a big pay cut if that meant I could fuck off to the countryside and buy a house in a few years, while working from home.