Top 10 games that cost the most money to develop, some of which cost more than half a billion dollars

Looking at the scale and quality of games over time, one thing is for sure, although not every game released later is guaranteed to be good, but the cost to develop and promote them is increasing.

The games that cost the most money to develop

Gone are the days like Halo 3, which cost $30 million to develop, and another $40 million to promote. Some of the names on this list even eat away at Hollywood blockbusters in terms of production and marketing costs. For example, Avengers: Endgame costs Disney $ 350 to $ 400 million to produce and advertise, while Red Dead Redemption 2 costs about half a billion dollars.

The reason is simple, when creating a blockbuster-sized work, the publisher will also try to make the product they sell to the market known to the most people, through the most advertising channels. , thereby maximizing sales. Meanwhile, indie games are the right kind of natural scent, who knows, try to play, play if you like, recommend to friends and share on forums, but do not have a strong advertising investment. like giants like Sony, Microsoft or Activision.

And the names on this list are added with both development and promotion costs, plus the balance of the amount to equal the inflation rate of the dollar at the moment.

1. Red Dead Redemption 2: $379 to $550 million

If there is the title of the most expensive game to create, then RDR2 certainly has no competition, but at the same time, it is not the most successful game, being the golden egg for Rockstar Games like Grand Theft Auto 5 With an amount from 170 to 240 million USD in development costs, each character, each weapon, each horse, each scene in the virtual world of the American wild west in the early twentieth century is designed in detail. to the point that even the most powerful PC could not run the game at 60 FPS at 4K resolution. This huge number itself is actually the result of the game being delayed a few times.

The scarier number is the amount of money that Take Two Interactive spent promoting this game: 200 to 300 million USD estimated. From TV ads, animated posters on screens at Times Square New York, or Picadilly Square UK, to banners on websites and newspaper ads, T2 has everyone know this western cowboy classic.

2. Star Citizen: Over 320 million USD

This is a bit controversial, because in theory Star Citizen is not an officially released game, but over the years it has been average in Early Access, but the money that loyal fans spend to raise capital for this work to take shape is a number that cannot be ignored. In 2010, Star Citizen began to develop, and in 2012, the game company Cloud Imperium Games opened crowd-funding on Kickstarter, raising more than 2 million USD, with the promise of creating a virtual world with virtual life exploring the Milky Way. how big.

Initially, the game company promised to release the game in 2014, but it was delayed again and again, but they still accepted donations even after the Kickstarter donation process ended. As of June 2020, the total amount of money that fans transferred to Cloud Imperium to develop Star Citizen, plus the money for selling virtual goods in the beta and many other investment sources has reached more than 320 million USD, but where is the game? Haven't seen the official version yet.

3. Cyberpunk 2077: $316 million

Touching this game is also difficult, because no matter what, 20,000 brothers appear to disparage CD Projekt RED's latest work. When the game was first released, there were a lot of bugs, and it didn't run optimally on hardware. The PS4 version was so bad that Sony did the unprecedented thing, which was to remove the game from the PlayStation Store, which has yet to be sold. Even after missing the appointment many times, most of the brothers agree that Cyberpunk 2077 should be delayed further to complete the artistic vision that the Poles have promised to the fans.

And after so many delays, calculating the total cost, Cyberpunk 2077 cost CD Projekt 174 million USD, the result of mistakes in the development and control of the game development process. Accompanied by a huge promotion money: 142 million USD. As bad as it is, many people decry it, Cyberpunk 2077 is still one of the best-selling games of 2020.

4. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2: $298 million

Back in the days of PS3 and Xbox 360, the game that cost the most money to develop was part 2 of the Modern Warfare series, where the brothers continued to follow Soap, Captain Price and their teammates to prevent a global conflict. Compared to Call of Duty 4, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is comprehensively upgraded in depth. The single-player storyline is more explosive than the previous one, and the multiplayer has many powerful upgrades in both gameplay and weapon system.

Although at that time, Infinity Ward only spent 50 million USD to develop the game, but Activision played so big that, spent another 200 million to do marketing for the game. There has never been a game that ran as big of a TV ad as Modern Warfare 2. In terms of inflation, this now equates to nearly $300 million in game spending.

5. Grand Theft Auto 5: $291 million

Turns out, the game that brought in the most money for Rockstar Games was not the work they spent the most money to develop. Up to now, GTA V is still continuously on the list of best-selling games every month in many countries around the world, not to mention the sales of 'Shark Card' to buy virtual currency to spend in GTA Online with real money. In the near future, GTA V will launch on PS5 and Xbox Series X, ie three console generations just to play GTA V.

At the time of development, GTA V cost $ 137 million, with a development team of more than 1000 people working, it took 4 and a half years to turn the game into shape. Deep plot, impressive quest system, and perfect role-playing actors. Take Two Interactive should not have spent a dime promoting the game. But no, before GTA V came out, they spent 128 million USD to make sure everyone knew their work was released. In total, adding the inflation rate, we have the above figure of $291 million.

6. Star Wars: The Old Republic: over $227 million

Making MMO games isn't cheap at all. And an MMO set in one of the most famous entertainment brands on the planet is not easy. It must be of a quality worthy of the name itself. Even when making an online game called the sequel of two role-playing game works in the context of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic part 1 and 2, the burden on Star Wars: The Old Republic is even greater. much more tense.

As a result, BioWare took a lot of time to create the MMO game, but it was a huge success as it took only 3 days to reach 1 million players, even though the game requires a monthly fee. But since then, the game has gradually dropped players, despite the expansions to keep the brothers. It wasn't until EA decided to make Star Wars: The Old Republic a free-to-play game that the playerbase stabilized.

7. Halo 2: $217 million

Halo ushered in the era of online shooters with the Xbox, and part 2 is even more ambitious than that. Bungie knows how to create a standard shooter work, laying the foundation for many games to come, with a lobby system, a system of friends to play with, or even a DLC sales model with new maps to keep the game fresh. Meanwhile, the gameplay system is also relatively expanded, with the plot, weapons, vehicles, and even characters.

Even with an abundance of money injected by Microsoft, Bungie still couldn't bring all of their new ideas to Halo 2. And in 2004, Halo 2 spent $ 40 million from Microsoft to develop, plus more. $80 million in game promotion money, the inflation rate of 2021 is more than $200 million.

8. Marvel's Avengers: Over $170 million

After the great success of Marvel's Spider-Man on PS4, Marvel is also very eager to bring other superheroes to the game screen, when assigning the responsibility of developing Avengers to Crystal Dynamics, the creator of the Tomb Raider series. Each crime, the model of the Avengers is not what the players expect. The game is quite bland in terms of content, although the plot is described relatively carefully, with both knots and depth.

It is said that, thanks to the Avengers, Square Enix lost $ 48 million straight, selling only 60% of the company's expectations. Combining these numbers, analysts estimate that Marvel's Avengers cost about $170 million to develop and promote.

9. Destiny: 151 million USD

Another work of the talented people in Bungie, this time it's an epic game with role-playing shooter gameplay, loot-dependent power, Destiny. After leaving the Halo series, Bungie created a work described as a 'player retention platform for 10 years', constantly updating and expanding. Initially, thanks to an agreement between Activision and Bungie, part 1 was funded with $ 140 million to develop, with the ambition to create a series to compete with Call of Duty itself. But by season 2, for various reasons, Activision and Bungie went their separate ways, and Bungie had full control over the Destiny brand.

Activision once stated that the total cost of Destiny part 1 was 500 million USD, but Bungie denied this number, and the figure in the official documents is 140 million USD, calculated at 2021 inflation rates as more than 150 million USD.

10. Dead Space 2: $136 million

The first Dead Space surprised everyone because it redefines the horror game genre, not only hitting the player's psyche with images but also sound. To part 2, EA played all the time, pouring money to fully upgrade this game, from action scenes, new monsters, more gruesome images, and meticulously detailed game scenes. The game even has a multiplayer mode that is relatively redundant to keep players in the game.

At that time, Visceral Games was assigned $ 60 million to develop the game, and the same amount was spent by EA to promote Dead Space 2.