[HN Gopher] List of most expensive video games to develop
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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.
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