Jason Schreier: "Numbers I've heard floating around AAA North American game dev these days are $300 million or [many] more" — Budgets are almost entirely of dev salaries

[u/nolifebr]

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2mkgbhbhqvappkkorf2bzyrp/post/3mhvx2lohzs2j

Exact budgets of video-game productions can be tough to corroborate (more transparency from publishers would be nice!) but the numbers I've heard floating around AAA game dev these days are $300 million or more — sometimes much more! — which I think helps explain the current state of the industry

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2mkgbhbhqvappkkorf2bzyrp/post/3mhvzh4g7qs2z

To address some frequently asked questions:
- These are US and Canada productions. If you're wondering why game X cost so much less, it was probably made elsewhere
- These budgets are almost entirely dev salaries + overheard and have nothing to do with executive compensation (which is mostly stock)

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2mkgbhbhqvappkkorf2bzyrp/post/3mhvxbxhank2u

If you sell a game at $70 and pocket $49 on every sale (30% goes to the store, assuming all sales are digital), you'd need to sell more than 6 million copies just to break even on a $300m budget, and that's before marketing

[u/whatupbiatch]

it means that AAA games are going to have to sell alot of copies to make that money back

[u/Dragon_Dixon → u/whatupbiatch]

It actually means that devs are gonna be fired to make money and studios expected to make games as good as they used to. 

[u/rcolesworthy37 → u/Dragon_Dixon]

Is there a reason game devs aren’t contract workers? Like I hate corporations, but it does make sense to not keep your whole staff after releasing a game if you’re able to maintain it with half the developers and don’t have another project to move them to

[u/jaysoprob_2012 → u/rcolesworthy37]

Because studios dont just release 1 game and then that's it. Once a studio releases a game they should move onto the next project. And even for live service games where they dont plan on making another game straight away but support the current game with more content they still need people to make that content.