Ever see reporters say a game "only" sold a million copies, as if that's nothing to be proud of? Well, we might now know why. It's no secret that AAA budgets have ballooned in the last decade or so, but it now seems that the cost of making a game is getting to a point where it's almost impossible to make that money back, unless you create a generational hit.
Speaking on Bluesky, Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier explained while most publishers avoid giving concrete data on their budgets for AAA games, the figures he's hearing from developers are "$300 million or more — sometimes much more!"
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This, according to Schreier, "helps explain the current state of the industry." He notes these numbers are primarily for US and Canadian developers, and that the majority of these budgets are spent on developer salaries, and have very little to do with executive compensation, most of which is apparently stock.
Looking at the numbers, a game on a $300 million budget needs to sell at least 6 million copies at $70 a piece to break even, and that's not including a marketing budget. Now we see why games that look like major successes on the outside are still resulting in layoffs and studio closures. Of course, this is not an official list of all AAA budgets right now, but it perhaps puts the wider industry in a different perspective if it proves true.