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)
It’s because creative direction in these comapnies sucks. It’s usually a big, bureaucratized souless machine where your connections mean more than your actual skill.
With a small touch of design-by-committee on top
True that. But then they still expect us to pay 59,99 for the bare minimum…but yet, we do.
Couldn’t be me. I only pay full price for games when it’s exceptional games like arc raiders or quality indie games with fair pricing.
Same. I long stopped buying their shit. And also mostly shifted to indie.