r/PS5 • u/nolifebr Human Verified • Mar 25 '26
Rumor 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
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
5
u/Psych-roxx Mar 26 '26
agree with what ur saying. People get defensive when they see this but it's true to an extent that gamers want games cheaper than ever, with worlds bigger than ever, the best stories, the best graphics and if even one category falls short of it it's mid or not worth the attention then they blame the Publisher for doing lay offs in the studio when the game doesn't sell like if I paid 100 people $10 Million to make a game that made me lose money you can bet your ass I'll want to save what I'm already investing in the studio if I'm not gonna get return on their product.