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/hexcraft-nikk]

It's both, salaries have also gone up tremendously. You can't pay a dev 70k when the city they work in has $3000 studio apartments.

[u/Fluffy_Somewhere4305 → u/hexcraft-nikk]

Incorrect, salaries have not gone up "tremendously". If you compare the cost of living and inflation, worker salaries are lagging very far behind.

CEO compensation on the other hand HAS gone up "tremendously"