Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier.bsky.social)
bsky.app
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

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)
  • jonathan@piefed.socialEnglish
    2·
    5 hours ago

    They’re not a consistent size over the life of a project. They also contract out a lot of stuff later on to avoid ramping the team up too much.

    Look at Epic games, ~5k staff before the recent layoff. The games they developed over the past 10+ years aren’t even AAA production levels.

    • MurrayL@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      4 hours ago

      Epic isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison with most other studios. They don’t just make games, they develop and support Unreal Engine for both games and film production, they operate EGS, a motion capture studio, ArtStation, Sketchfab, and a dozen other subsidiaries. It’s a huge company.