It’s no secret that growing AAA video games is an costly enterprise, and one which’s persevering with to get extra and costlier at a startling price. With expertise persevering with to enhance and AAA experiences themselves getting more and more extra huge, it’s unlikely that that’s going to decelerate anytime quickly.
That’s additionally evidenced by particulars supplied on the typical growth and advertising prices for contemporary AAA video games in a report revealed by the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), following its latest determination to block Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
According to the CMA’s report, the price of growing a contemporary AAA recreation that has been just lately greenlit and is focusing on a launch in 2024-25 tends to be as excessive as $200 million or greater, which is up considerably from the figures as they stood at the same time as just lately as 5 years in the past, at $50-$150 million on common. Last 12 months’s The Callisto Protocol, as an illustration, value $162 million to develop.
The CMA’s report states that new instalments within the Call of Duty franchise have already got growth budgets in extra of $300 million, whereas Grand Theft Auto 6 can be talked about as having a funds of over $250 million.
All of this, apparently sufficient, doesn’t even account for advertising and promotion prices. The CMA’s report mentions plenty of builders and publishers who supplied related figures (whose names have clearly been redacted), with many mentioning growth prices within the vary of $80-$350 million, and advertising prices within the vary of $50-$380 million.
One specific writer, nevertheless, revealed that certainly one of its main franchises has hit growth prices of $660 million and advertising prices of $550 million.