NJ5 said:
Yes, a big team (as in 75-100+ people) can easily spend $10 million a year depending on which country they work at. There's all kinds of costs in there: not just salaries but hardware (each team member needs at least one modern PC), software licensing (those 3D modelling and image editing programs aren't cheap), taxes, office space rental / maintenance etc. There's some guesswork involved, but I think it's safe to say that a 100 people team working at a developed country will easily cost around $10 million a year.
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You really shouldn't average the cost of game development, cost of development could vary significantly on a year to year basis. Disregarding annual expenditures, just the fluctuating number of staffs (they always increase as a game gets closer to completion) will ensure that the cost of development could increase by millions annually.
edit:
With regards to cost, here is a source citing an average HD game cost between 12-20 million:
According to THQ Chief Executive Brian Farrell, while an investment in an Xbox 360 or PS3 game might be in the range of $12 million to $20 million on average
There has been rumour that Uncharted cost $20 million to make, given the significantly longer development time and the larger staff counts (averaged for the 4-5years the game is in developement), this game could concievably double the cost @ $40mil but going higher would be stretching it imo.
