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

Shouldn't be surprising

[slim]

I don't see why this is surprising. A game has as much visual design per frame as a Hollywood CGI movie, yet is typically much longer. Add to that the interactivity. The hours of dialogue. The playtesting.

It's surprising that games are cheaper to make than movies.

Marketing Budgets can dwarf Dev Costs

[Zeussy]

If you took at any recent AAA title game, marketing and distribution costs are huge. Apparently the marketing budget for COD:MW2 was $200 million (although that probably includes distribution costs) with development $40-50 million. According to http://www.thatvideogameblog.com/2009/11/19/modern-warfare-2s-development-budget-40-50-million/
Halo 3's was $40 million+ of marketing, similar to dev cost. GTAIV would of had similar if not more, being a multi platform title. Although wiki says the development of GTAIV was estimated to cost near $100.
A friend of mine from THQ complained that De Blob sold really well, then they blew the equivalent of profits on the marketing campaign for japan, and the game flopped there.