The gaming industry has changed a lot over the past few decades, from technological advancements to visual fidelity and scope; the games today are way more complex. More complex games mean more costs and longer development times, which have surpassed anything we’ve seen before.
Why are video games getting more expensive to make?
Over the last 30 years, development budgets increased from up to a million dollars to hundreds of millions, and development usually takes 5-8 years. Multiple factors play into this, from increased scope and visual fidelity of modern AAA games that require larger teams to occasional changes in the game’s direction that cost precious time (and money).
One recent example is Crimson Desert, released in 2026. The game was well received thanks to its open world and deep exploration, but it also took six years to make. On top of that, the game has been delayed due to voice-over work, certification, and other minor hiccups. This is just one example of how games take longer and thus are more expensive to make.
How game budgets have changed over the past 30 years
In the early 90s, game development costs ranged from a couple hundred thousand to a million. The original DOOM (1993) cost less than a million. There were exceptions, namely the Final Fantasy series, with multi-million budgets ahead of their time, especially when you consider inflation.
The budgets began increasing in the early 2000s, when DOOM 3 cost $14 million and four years to make compared to the original title. During the Xbox 360 / PS3 era, the development costs have increased to roughly $20-30 million, with some high-profile games exceeding that. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was estimated at $20 million in development costs, while Halo 3 was around $30 million, excluding marketing.
In the modern day, the AAA games typically receive development budgets of $200 million or higher. Call of Duty is the prime example, with development costs well exceeding $300 million and requiring support from other studios who work on the franchise (Sledgehammer Games, Infinity Ward, Raven Software, and Treyarch).
Bigger worlds require bigger teams
Recognized video games journalist Jason Schreier highlighted that the biggest expense in games development is people. The estimated average monthly burn rate for one employee today is roughly $15,000 to $20,000, including salary, benefits, office space, and more.
As developers look to create more ambitious games with higher graphical fidelity, large open worlds, and cinematics that require motion capture, teams and development times have increased. With AAA games requiring teams of hundreds of people, the numbers easily compound into millions of dollars for a large-scale project. A game like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 cost $300 million – triple the amount of the first game.
A larger scope means areas like voice acting, accessibility, QA, and localization now require more people, too. The correlation isn’t linear – new tools and outsourcing can also reduce development time, but ultimately, games have been getting more advanced, and so have the costs.
Players expect more than ever before
More advanced games set a new standard for what we want to see from a new release. Expectations can range from rich open worlds, like in Crimson Desert, to consistent content updates for a live-service game like Genshin Impact. The latter is estimated to cost over a billion dollars due to its live-service support.
Destiny 2 received its final content update, after which the developer Bungie had layoffs. According to a Forbes report, the end of the game was caused by the enormous scale of content that had to be produced to meet player expectations (on top of resource mismanagement).
In an interview with Bloomberg, Strauss Zelnick, the CEO of Take-Two Interactive, stressed that the expectations for Grand Theft Auto VI are extremely high. “Development costs have gone up and up. And we really do aim to deliver the highest quality entertainment on Earth. And that is costly.”
This is also how Grand Theft Auto VI supposedly cost around $3 billion to make, according to Saukko505, who did a deep dive into Rockstar’s expenses. Granted, GTA VI is one of the most anticipated video games ever made, and Rockstar spends more freely to live up to its quality standard. But the rising costs translate to other games, even if in a more controlled environment.
Still, expectations depend on the game. High-fidelity visuals aren’t worth much if the performance or gameplay are lackluster. These days, fewer and fewer people want to see new live-service games in this oversaturated market or single-player games with bloated open worlds.
Sometimes, that disconnect between the game and player expectations results in underwhelming releases that take too long to make.
Why development now takes five to eight years
As AAA games become more ambitious, the teams expand to hundreds of people, sometimes even across multiple studios. Although an extreme example, Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced had 15 Ubisoft studios working on it.
Depending on the game, there may be technical factors like engine development if the studio opts for a proprietary engine. On the other hand, games often get delayed due to last-minute polish, certification issues, and other things, like previously mentioned Crimson Desert.
There’s also a case of games changing direction, mismanagement, and poor decision-making on the leadership side, resulting in games taking longer to make and costing more money. The past few years have seen many titles come out that were in development hell, constantly changed directions, or simply didn’t make sense:
- Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League tried to be a live-service game even though the team behind it specializes in single-player experiences.
- Skull & Bones took so many years to make that the only likely reason it hasn’t been canned is due to the deal with the Singaporean government .
- Redfall , developed by Arkane Studios (the team behind Dishonored and Prey ), even had developers hoping Microsoft would shut it down after it had purchased ZeniMax.
- Avowed took six years to make and was rebooted twice, scrapping a lot of the original ideas that envisioned a Skyrim x Destiny type of game.
This is on top of a live-service frenzy, which resulted in companies like Sony greenlighting 12 live-service games, eight of which got cancelled. And while there were successes like Helldivers 2, this eagerness to chase live-service success also resulted in games like Concord with budgets well above $200 million, but ultimately no audience – a ton of resources that could’ve been invested elsewhere.
Marketing now rivals development costs
While some may say a good game doesn’t need marketing, in a time where hundreds of new games come out every month, it can be impossible to stand out. This is where marketing and marketing budgets come in, spanning many millions for AAA titles.
Cyberpunk 2077 spent $142 million on marketing, close to blockbuster movie marketing budgets. To put it in perspective, Avengers: Endgame had a marketing budget over $200 million, and it was one of the biggest Marvel movies ever.
Keep in mind marketing isn’t just ads. It’s copywriting, social media, showcases, community management, comms, creator outreach, and more. A spot at a showcase like The Game Awards can cost between $450,000 and a million, depending on the trailer’s length. All those fields are closely intertwined to make sure you hear about that one game.
Why publishers take fewer creative risks
In the world of rising development costs, publishers choose to take fewer risks, especially in light of mismanaged expensive failures. This leads to more sequels, spinoffs, remakes, and remasters instead of something original, as companies seek steadier revenue to keep earnings up.
Long-lasting franchises across different genres, including Call of Duty, Resident Evil, DOOM, EA Sports FC, and more, have been examples of that. There’s natural demand for a lot of these series, but it’s also why it’s easier for studios to focus on them instead of crafting something completely new.
The past few years also brought several remasters and remakes, like Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, with rumored Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas remasters in the works.
Publishers have visibly been doubling down on existing IPs. Ubisoft created a new Tencent-backed subsidiary, Vantage Studios, consisting of six existing Ubisoft offices and 2,300 employees. Vantage Studios focuses on the publisher’s largest IPs: Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six, hinting that those would be the priority moving forward.
A similar story might happen with Electronic Arts after its acquisition deal finalizes, even though it has already been focusing on existing game series, including Battlefield, EA Sports FC, and F1, with occasional remakes, such as Dead Space in 2023.
Can AI reduce development costs?
AI has been a hot topic in game development. Many studios use it in one way or another, but plenty of games that use AI face backlash. This mainly applies to generative AI and technologies like DLSS 5, which makes games look like they went through an AI filter.
Some industry leaders like Todd Howard, head of Bethesda Game Studios, view it as a tool to iterate faster rather than generating things and replacing human creativity. Similarly, Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, said these tools are an “accelerant” in the hands of professional creators.
Studios like Pocketpair behind Palworld don’t use gen AI because, in their words, it doesn’t offer much. The developer of the Kingdom Come Deliverance series, Warhorse Studios, uses AI in early production but doesn’t use any AI-generated content.
Every studio has its own stance on AI, but it’s important to recognize the different ways AI can be used. While it can be used to generate visuals, it can also speed up the tedious parts of game development, like QA, that we as players don’t really notice.
This can bring development times down and reduce costs of making a game without replacing any talent with AI. However, by how much those costs can go down and how far this technology is pushed depends entirely on the studios.
Will games keep getting more expensive?
How the game development budgets may change over the next years is hard to tell. The cost of making games will likely keep going up due to factors like inflation, increased salaries, and demand for specialized roles, but the entire industry is in a very volatile spot.
After multiple years of layoffs and studio closures, AAA publishers are tightening game development budgets and triple down on their core IPs. XBOX has seen a series of releases that failed to meet financial expectations and spun off multiple studios as part of the core restructuring, alongside major layoffs. This doesn’t make the games themselves cheaper to make, but it definitely affects the types of games we might see in the future.
At the same time, teams can opt to develop better tools and focus on creating games with smaller teams, much like Embark Studios did with ARC Raiders and THE FINALS, incorporate more AI tools, or outsource some of the development.
FAQs
How much does a AAA game cost to make?
A modern AAA game budget can easily exceed $300 million.
What is the most expensive video game ever developed?
The most expensive video game ever developed is GTA VI, estimated at around $3 billion.
Why do games take so long to develop?
Larger scopes, and sometimes changes in direction or mismanagement, all contribute to development time.
Why do studios have so many developers?
Larger games require more people and often many specialized roles.
Will AI make games cheaper to produce?
In theory, AI can make games faster, and thus cheaper, to make.
