[HN Gopher] List of most expensive video games to develop ___________________________________________________________________ List of most expensive video games to develop Author : luu Score : 47 points Date : 2022-09-20 18:33 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org) (TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org) | dijit wrote: | Terrifyingly, 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. | seanalltogether wrote: | Surely League of Legends and World of Warcraft should be at the | top of this list? | awb wrote: | Surprising that no Blizzard games made the list | Tangurena2 wrote: | According 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-deve... | | Total costs of $200M as of 2008: | | https://www.wired.com/2008/09/total-operating/ | Vvector wrote: | WoW $60m for initial release, $200m a couple expacks later. The | list is missing many games. | dang wrote: | Ongoing related thread: | | _Star Citizen has passed half a billion in funding_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32916496 - Sept 2022 (17 | comments) | LastMuel wrote: | I 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). | mappu wrote: | The "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 | and https://www.thegamer.com/genshin-impact-most-expensive- | game-... which puts the current number at $500 million. | xeromal wrote: | I feel like Halo Infinite is missing. I believe it cost about | 200M to develop | guitarlimeo wrote: | This list is missing Red Dead Redemption 2 which could be the | top1 on the list: | 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! | abhayhegde wrote: | After 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? | [deleted] | trey-jones wrote: | Serious 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! | etempleton wrote: | MW2 was an absolute phenomenon. It is what made Call of Duty | what it is today. I was in college when both MW 1 and 2 came | out. I knew no one else that had the first MW, but literally | every single friend of mine had MW2. Was this inevitable or was | it the marketing? | | I think they knew they had a hit on their hands and spent the | money to make it a phenomenon. It paid off. | hajile wrote: | Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was the best selling game of | 2007 and sold over 16M copies. | | All the future games were just derivatives of what was a | fairly genre-defining game. | | The game's campaign is generally regarded as the best the | series ever had. It moved away from the very popular world | war or sci-fi games that dominated while striking close to | home for the post-9/11 generations of gamers who were | impacted by the ramped-up wars going on in the Middle East. | | The multiplayer for the rest of the series was especially | derivative of cod4 as it has basically been a few extra | weapons and exorbitant "win more" kill streaks. | aaron695 wrote: | polishdude20 wrote: | In 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 wrote: | Of 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. | edm0nd wrote: | Saved 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 | tmtvl wrote: | Is FFVII adjusted for inflation? Because that seems like a lot | for a PSX game. | mminer237 wrote: | Yes, it's $80M-145M in 1997 dollars. | [deleted] | SnooSux wrote: | Star Citizen is gonna be so good if it ever comes out | jandrese wrote: | Star 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 wrote: | I wouldn't call it a scam because it is functional. It's | just nowhere near done. It honestly was just too ambitious. | edm0nd wrote: | Seems 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 wrote: | It 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 wrote: | > 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 wrote: | The 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 wrote: | They'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. | Ocerge wrote: | Shadow 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. | togs wrote: | Did FFXV spend about 15 years in development | aidenn0 wrote: | According to this, E.T. for the Atari VCS cost more than Half- | Life 2, after adjusting for inflation. | SllX wrote: | I think the cost is typically marketing, development and if | applicable: licensing and production costs; but for this game | specifically it probably also includes returns and disposal | costs. It didn't just fail: it failed so hard it landed in a | ditch in Arizona, and for how hard it was pushed, the marketing | costs had to have been substantial. | ysavir wrote: | Maybe they counted the cost of making the movie towards the | game's marketing budget. Very effective marketing! | KindAndFriendly wrote: | Which 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_(vi... | vlunkr wrote: | Could 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. | cge wrote: | The source for the $22m amount in Wikipedia [1] actually | gives that amount as _just_ the licensing cost, which fits | the $20-25m figure given in the game 's Wikipedia article, | from a few other sources. It appears that the Wikipedia list | is assuming there were actually no development costs that | were significant compared to the licensing. | | [1]: https://www.avclub.com/howard-scott-warshaw-1798208406 | [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._the_Extra- | Terrestrial_(vi... | aidenn0 wrote: | Could have also included the cost to manufacture the | cartridges? | lkbm wrote: | That article led me to | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_crash_of_1983 which | I didn't know about, but is very impressive. | bena wrote: | Really, 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. | vavooom wrote: | Hadn'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". | paxys wrote: | CDPR was so high on the success of their previous games that | they would have recouped their investment had they released a | literal potato. The money came at the cost of the studio's | reputation, however. | scott_w wrote: | Which is funny because that's exactly what they did, by all | accounts! | nagyf wrote: | > 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 wrote: | I'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 wrote: | The 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. | SketchySeaBeast wrote: | I agree, and you're right, they shouldn't have released | them on the old consoles - they just weren't build for | what the game does - which is incredibly fast loading and | data streaming. I wasn't 100% sure because I think you | could get a refund on a PS5 as well (though at the time | those were few and far between), and 'Many features | missing that were "promised"' doesn't sound like a PS4 | problem. | spywaregorilla wrote: | Super 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 wrote: | I'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 wrote: | It also seems like with a couple of outliers, marketing costs | have outpaced development costs. | cavanasm wrote: | I think a huge aspect of that is simply that very few games | have their budgets disclosed. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-09-20 23:01 UTC)