Average Budget For Major, Multi-Platform Games Is $18-28 Million

An anonymous reader passes along this excerpt from Develop: "The average development budget for a multiplatform next-gen game is $18-$28 million, according to new data. A study by entertainment analyst group M2 Research also puts development costs for single-platform projects at an average of $10 million. The figures themselves may not be too surprising, with high-profile games often breaking the $40 million barrier. Polyphony's Gran Turismo 5 budget is said to be hovering around the $60 million mark, while Modern Warfare 2's budget was said to be as high as $50 million."

Comments

Re:Half the cost for another platform?

[laird]

Exactly. Getting something to run on an Xbox 360, a PS3 and a Wii is very hard because they are very different platforms. So while there are frameworks and tools that help get the code running on all platforms, so the differences between the hardware is less of a hassle than it used to be, it's a lot of work making the game run *well* on all platforms. For example, you can't use the same 3d models or textures on a Wii and a PS3 or Xbox 360, so you need to redo them (unless you want the PS3 and Xbox 360 to look like a Wii). And, of course, each company has its own approval process, with its own UI standards, etc., as well as unique hardware to be taken into account (e.g. Wiimote). What this means is that while you can reuse the core logic, level design, etc., there's still tons of work to do for each additional platform.

Re:Marketing Budgets can dwarf Dev Costs

[Anonymous Coward]

"GTAIV would of had similar if not more, being a multi platform title."

God dammit! It's "would HAVE had"!

no.. 200 million for marketing mw2.

[leuk_he]

The LA Times report also claims that the marketing costs of Modern Warfare 2 hit close to $200 million - a staggering figure for a video game marketing campaign.

Now choose your professions. Marketing of coding. ;)