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Compared to the game industry, the film industry is relatively transparent when it comes to budgets.
A lot of game developers generally keep their budgets under wraps, but that hasn’t stopped some from getting out over the years, some of which are eye-watering numbers rivalling those of the most expensive film productions.
Perhaps the most famous reveal came from leaks and trial documents, which indicated late PS4 titles like “The Last of Us Part II” and “Horizon: Forbidden West” cost a little over $200 million to make (that’s before marketing), while the PS5 title “Spider-Man 2” cost $300 million
Now, in a new BlueSky post by Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier, it is revealed that from the numbers he’s heard ‘floating around’ about AAA game development, budgets these days are “in excess of $300 million and ‘sometimes much more’.”
He indicates these are budgets for video games developed in North America and have nothing to do with executive compensation. In countries where developers are paid less, game budgets are obviously lower. Much of the cost comes from wages – meaning the smaller the developer team, or the less time required to make the game, the less the overall budget.
Breaking down the math, Schreier says: “If you sell a game at $70 and pocket $49 on every sale… you’d need to sell more than 6 million copies just to break even on a $300 million budget, and that’s before marketing.”
For someone like RockStar Games or Activision, it’s no major deal as they do those kinds of sales numbers in their sleep, but for much of the industry – it’s unsustainable.
That said, there has been a welcome transparency and championing of developers in the last year or two who have been able to bring in games on tighter budgets. Some may have complained about its short length, but rumors suggest that it helped “Resident Evil Requiem” come in at a budget of less than $100 million.
2024’s Game of the Year winner “Astro Bot” was done for around $50-75 million, while “Ghost of Yotei” was reportedly made for around $60 million. 2025’s winner “Clair Obscur: Expedition 33” was famously made in France for less than $10 million, but that is an extreme case.
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