most expensive games ever made

[Jonesy]

A buddy of mine found this list online and emailed it through to me so i'm not sure if it's 100% accurate but it looks pretty realistic. What are your thoughts?

GOW3 comes in at number 11.

1. Grand Theft Auto IV – $100 million
2. Gran Turismo 5 – $80 million
3. Shenmue – $70 million
4. Too Human – $60 million+
5. Metal Gear Solid 4 – $60 million
6. Halo 3 – $55 million
7. APB – $50 million
8. L.A. Noire – $50 million
9. Final Fantasy XII – $48 million
10. Killzone 2 – $45 million

[Evan_OS]

Re: most expensive games ever made

Interesting with GTA coming in 1st place, pretty big drop off after GTA IV.

[Jukeman]

Re: most expensive games ever made

I think they wasted their money...

But they prolly made a hugh profit tho..

[Flawless]

Re: most expensive games ever made

A few of those figures are to high. Kaz himself has said GT5 is $60M and Konami has denied the $60M figure for MGS4. Also, Halo 3 was $30M with $10M spent on marketing.

[Cyros]

Re: most expensive games ever made

I wonder how accurate the Too Human figure is.

[Jonesy]

Re: most expensive games ever made

A few of those figures are to high. Kaz himself has said GT5 is $60M and Konami has denied the $60M figure for MGS4. Also, Halo 3 was $30M with $10M spent on marketing.

I think some of those figures could be in Aussie dollars so 80mil Austalian might have been around 60mil US so that might explain some of the slightly higher figures.

Which of those game would you describe as the Waterworld of the videogame industry? Shenmue didn't sell very well despite almost cult like status with some people so 70mil and 7 years on that would have to be close to the biggest flop but Too Human was very poor wasn't it and took many years to be made with mediocre success?

[bkfount]

Re: most expensive games ever made

I've seen the list, and the original website lists no sources. The list is also mostly pointless, because there's not the level of transparency present in the movie industry.

The LA Times says MW2 cost around $50 million to develop, and had a total launch budget of $200 million. WoW is also estimated to have cost around $60 million to develop, and burns something like $4 million a month to keep running.

[bkfount]

Re: most expensive games ever made

Which of those game would you describe as the Waterworld of the videogame industry? Shenmue didn't sell very well despite almost cult like status with some people so 70mil and 7 years on that would have to be close to the biggest flop but Too Human was very poor wasn't it and took many years to be made with mediocre success?

shenmue was costly, but they started developing it in the saturn, moved it to the dreamcast, and developed at least the first two at the same time. The initial cost would have been spread apart a number of games.

The same is true with Too Human. That was intended to be a trilogy, and you just don't build up sequels out of scratch. A lot of the cost would have been spread over.

[MC Fatigue]

Re: most expensive games ever made

Goes to show that pumping money into a game doesn't make it very good. A lot of mediocre games up there.

[luv_mist]

Re: most expensive games ever made

Which one do you guys think was worth the budget?

[ScoobySnax]

Re: most expensive games ever made

A few of those figures are to high. Kaz himself has said GT5 is $60M and Konami has denied the $60M figure for MGS4. Also, Halo 3 was $30M with $10M spent on marketing.

I thought it was around the $20MM mark. Maybe add $10MM for that awesome *** trailer!

[Brandwin]

Re: most expensive games ever made

I've only played three games on this list.
GTA
Halo 3
Killzone 2

[elgreazy1]

Re: most expensive games ever made

I've played none of those games.

[ryanm1058123]

Re: most expensive games ever made

If only they could find a way to reduce the cost for Shenmue and make another one.

It would sell millions based on nostalgia factors alone.

[bkfount]

Re: most expensive games ever made

Which one do you guys think was worth the budget?

The budget for GT5 certainly includes GT5: Prologue, which is the top selling ps3 game ever, and Polyphony Digital has said it sold around 4.6 million copies. Even if the GT5 budget was $80 million, they've more than covered the costs with Prologue sales, and GT5 will sell like crazy worldwide too. Sony also benefits from the added console sales GT5 brings them.

What's amazing is that no Nintendo titles are on the list, yet they dominate the list of best selling games ever.