Budgets in video games can be tricky. A lot of the time developers don't want to reveal how much their game costs. The great thing about life is that it has gaming journalists. It also has people who know what they're talking about when it comes to money.
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When those journalists join forces with some of the people who understand finances then some cool speculation can be made about budgets. This article aims to cover games that people are certain about the budget for. It will also cover games with budgets that are speculated upon by experts.
10 10/10 Dead Space 2 ($120 Million)
According to an article from Forbes, written by Ollie Bardar, the development of Dead Space 2 cost $60 million and the marketing budget was around $60 million. The large budget of the game was cited in the Forbes article as one of the initial reasons that Visceral games might have gone under. This might be true, but what's also true is that Dead Space 2 was a fantastic sequel to the original third-person shooter.
It gave fans what they wanted through intense situations with Necromorphs. It also received a lot of praise as it was much better than the first game had been.
9 9/10 Halo 2 ($120 Million)
Halo 2's official figures released said that the game had spent $80 million to market. They also spend $40 million to develop the game. As Game Marketing Campaigns proves they used a lot of that money to make high-profile billboard ads. They also used the marketing money to create different types of ads on television to boost the sales of the game.
In the end, Halo 2 is known as a great sci-fi action game with some of the best multiplayer. It also won quite a few awards in its time. The marketing did a great job at selling a game that deserved the notoriety it got.
8 8/10 Destiny ($140 Million)
According to an article on VG247, the contract between Bungie and Activision was 27 pages long. It detailed that Destiny's budget came out to a total of $140 million along with many other things. Originally it was thought that the game was going to have a $500 million budget along with a ten-year plan. This all came out to be false.
Nonetheless, Destiny is still a great looter shooter series with plenty to offer. It didn't need to meet its 10-year one-game promise as it now has another installment with plenty of DLC. That in a way continues its 10-year plan.
7 7/10 Marvel's Avengers ($170-$190 Million)
There is a lot of speculation about how much the Marvel's Avengers game costs to make. The conjecture that many online sources came to was that the game came to around $170-$190 Million. This is because Square Enix released that 60% of their 6.5 billion yen loss on their quarterly earnings came from this game.
This was one of the times when it didn't matter how big the budget was. The game still ended up being virtually hated by fans of the movies and new players alike. Word spread quickly about the game's uninteresting nature and microtransactions which caused it to quickly plummet.
6 6/10 Star Wars: The Old Republic ($200-$300 Million)
According to an article by the Los Angeles Times EA refused to reveal how much it cost them to produce Star Wars: The Old Republic. This did not stop Wall Street analysts from reviewing the game's development. They estimated that the production alone of Star War: The Old Republic alone was around $150-$200 million.
They also took into account the marketing budget for other games. This caused them to assume that it would be somewhere similar to other titles placing it in that $200-$300 million range in the total budget including marketing. It is no surprise that a game of this magnitude would cost so much to create.
5 5/10 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 ($250 Million)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 costs about $40 million to $50 million to produce. As the Los Angeles Times shows the marketing budget was where the real expenditure came coming in at $200 million. Activision Blizzard's Chief Executive in that same article proclaims that his, "goal was to create a launch that would compare very favorably to the biggest box offices of all time." That is what Modern Warfare 2 did as it made a big splash.
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This is now known as one of the best Call of Duty games of all time. The marketing also did a great job at putting it on everyone's radar and creating a large buzz around the game.
4 4/10 Red Dead Redemption 2 ($200 - $300 Million)
An article on Venture Beat tried to do the math on the development costs of Red Dead Redemption 2 based on employees and the number of years that they worked. His experiment put the development costs at around $170 million in the eight-and-a-half-year span it took to make the game.
The marketing costs were estimated to be $200 million to $300 million which might be true and put this game far over the $500 million mark. However, this is all speculation that some think is false because marketing costs have been around $100 million for previous Rockstar games. Nevertheless, this cowboy epic has a pretty big price tag on it. The reasonable consensus has somewhat stated that the game cost around $200-$300 Million.
3 3/10 Grand Theft Auto V ($266 Million)
An article in 2013 from Business Insider revealed that in a Scotland-based paper called The Scotsman the budget for Grand Theft Auto V's development and marketing was around 170 million euros which adds up to $266 million. Sadly, that newspaper article no longer exists. That being said if the article happens to be true then, at the time, GTA V was probably the most expensive game developed.
The scale of Grand Theft Auto V was huge. The time that was put into the multiplayer shows that the game was taken seriously when being developed. Most likely the Scotsman article was right but no one will know besides those who had the opportunity to read it.
2 2/10 Cyberpunk 2077 ($316 Million)
An article that was released by Games Industry said that CD Projekt Red had released that they had a $316 Million budget for Cyberpunk 2077. Some people believe that this number had to be increased because the game was so buggy and was constantly being set back.
Many different hypotheses come from the budget of this game. The is also confusion about how much went into marketing versus development. Overall, the game had very mixed reviews because of all of its flaws but had moments of blissful beauty.
1 1/10 Star Citizen ($400+ Million)
According to an article on Tweak Town, Star Citizen raised its budget by $85 million through crowdfunding in 2021. That put the game's total funding at $420 million. That makes Star Citizen have the biggest budget on this list. It's awesome as it proves not all games need AAA companies to be amazing. Through crowdfunding, there are a lot more opportunities for games to be as big as their community wants them to be.
This game is still in Alpha but is one of the largest space simulation games to exist. It has a lot to offer in the choices that the players can make and the future still holds so much in store for this title.