Star Citizen is close to being one of the most expensive games to develop.

injurai said:
Don't forget, much of the budget for those top 30 expensive games is the marketing.
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So that's why newer Sony games are so low

laughing+lizard.jpg
 
So, adjusted for inflation (or is that already?) FF7 is the most expensive game of ALL TIME?

Can't be right...

Concerning Star Citizen: Yeah, the game has quite a lot of funding, and I expect it to blow my socks off.
 
I don't buy that list at all.
gran turismo 5 not even 100m? (after countless delays, I actually read an article few years back that its one of the most expensive games).
MW2 more than 200m? (if that's true than non of the other code is in the list?)
Halo 3 more than Halo 4?
 
GameAddict411 said:
MGS4 didn't even do half the sale figures of MGS2, it really underperformed. So i really doubt that TPP will have that much bigger budget.
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MGS3 also did not do as much as MGS2 if i remember right .
MGS2 is best selling MGS game and MGS3 is worst selling not counting handheld stuff from numbers i seeing .
 
From the Wiki page for FFVII

It was the most expensive video game of its time, with a budget of around US$45 million,[41] equivalent to $64 million in 2012.
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So if that OP links figure is accurate, its plus and including the marketing budget. And in 1997, I remember FFVII being advertised EVERYWHERE so its probably legit.
 
GameAddict411 said:
MGS4 didn't even do half the sale figures of MGS2, it really underperformed. So i really doubt that TPP will have that much bigger budget.
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Nah. IIRC, someone from Konami said that about 4 million copies of MGS IV will have to sell at $60 apiece in order to break even on the project. They made that mark, & have even sold a lot more copies afterwards.
 
velociraptor said:
Considering Square Enix have spoken about how Tomb Raider's '5-6 million' sales were a failure, I'm assuming that is the ballpark Activision are aiming for.
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Unlike Tomb Raider, I imagine Destiny is going to make a decent amount of money on microtransactions.
 
that list seems wrong somehow. How reliable is it?

As far as star citizen i doubt it would cost that much. Although there has being quite a bit of bloat (although roberts dont care since the millions keep coming).
 
The money that the Star Citizen folks raised through Kickstarter is not the only funds they're using. They have actual outside investors, as well.

I'm also not sure I would trust that Wikipedia list. Those are just best guesses based on partial information.
 
Considering their production values and Sony's marketing I would have expected to see either Uncharted 3 or The Last of Us on that list.
 
EightBitNate said:
Why was MW2 so expensive?
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Probably about 50-60 million in development costs, and then the rest in marketing. I'm not a fan of the COD series and I remember it was goddamn everywhere way back in 2009.

Edit - as for most of that list, I call into question its validity. For example, when God of War 3 was finished one if the senior SSM guys said it came in exactly on budget at $44 million, I think it was. When you factor in marketing it was probably $70 million+. Meaning that this list is probably kind of useless if some account for marketing and others don't.
 
Eh, seems pretty inaccurate but its just a tiny part of the full article. On the subject of Star Citizen though, I sincerely hope we start getting shown Real, solid gameplay and information about the title. Something other than abstract ideas.
 
All theses numbers are with marketing costs + Huge overhead + publisher costs + engine development costs.

You have none of these in Star Citizen, if you look at 43 millions for development it is at least twice that for the overhead and publisher , half of that because they use some else engine , and then half of your cost have to be marketing.

you end up with star citizen costing somewhere around 150 million if it was done by one of the big three( ubisoft / ea / activision ).

so yeah i think OP is right , definitely in the top 10 of all time.
 
I'm very skeptical about the figures everyone is coming up with, and this list as well. Interesting to see the numbers though.
 
H3XAntiStyle said:
How the HELL did FF7 cost that much!?

Actually, how the hell do any of these cost this much!? Jesus.
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Heh, sometimes publishers go overboard on budgeting for development & marketing.

It happens to be a very big risk, because if your game doesn't sell as many copies to make a profit or to break even, then the company will be heavily damaged profitability wise & maybe even forced to close down studios.
 
H3XAntiStyle said:
How the HELL did FF7 cost that much!?

Actually, how the hell do any of these cost this much!? Jesus.
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The only budget number from FF7 that has a source is a 47m figure that 1up used in one of their stories about it. I'm not sure where they got it from. But it wouldn't be too hard to believe given how much CG FF7 had.
 
Triggerhappytel said:
Probably about 50-60 million in development costs, and then the rest in marketing. I'm not a fan of the COD series and I remember it was goddamn everywhere way back in 2009.

Edit - as for most of that list, I call into question its validity. For example, when God of War 3 was finished one if the senior SSM guys said it came in exactly on budget at $44 million, I think it was. When you factor in marketing it was probably $70 million+. Meaning that this list is probably kind of useless if some account for marketing and others don't.
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This. It seems like some are just development cost, while others are including ads and production.
 
H3XAntiStyle said:
How the HELL did FF7 cost that much!?

Actually, how the hell do any of these cost this much!? Jesus.
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I remember they had over 100 people working on it at one stage and it was in development for 3 years (that's a lot of man hours) plus there was a big marketing push on it.
 
Not that its not expensive, but the game seems well underway and it needs to spend another $7m more just to break into the top 30. The article makes it sound like this is a $200m spectacle, but this doesn't seem that bad? And lots of those are over $50m with no marketing, if their $43m funds covers / has to cover marketing as well this would seem to be looking better? Or is there a secondary funding source adding to that $43m that I am unaware of, I must admit I have not really been following this game?
 
Well, at least it's got something to show for it. It's looking to be pretty amazing, and I haven't even been following it very closely.
 
Regarding the Halo MMO,

“Ensemble has been wanting to make an MMO for a long time. That was in production for a long time. The Halo IP was a great IP to launch an MMO with. Microsoft... hasn't had the best track record with those.
And we worked on it for a long time--we had staffed up an almost-40 person team. And then there was some reorganization at Microsoft, and the new bosses thought it wasn't the best idea anymore. It had actually been green-lit, and then it got cancelled after that", by Dave Pottinger

For more images
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Credits to Untitled Halo MMO and Halo cancelled MMO!
 
bobito said:
How did ffvii cost that much?
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Other sources say around $45 million, then. even inflation adjusted that's only around $65M

3 disks was a lot of assets for it's day, including lots of FMV!!, lots of pre rendered backgrounds and a long development time.

Then there's all the costs because they outsourced some of that and would be having to deal with new engine and new platform.

It's not totally crazy for a 2-3 year project with ~120 staff.
 
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