Uncharted's budget was...

[krik]

HappySqurriel said:

phil said:

HappySqurriel said:

$20 Million for a game which lasts less than 10 hours (with no multiplayer) is far from what I would call an inexpensive game. To maintain this level of content for a game that would last the more reasonable (and expected at one point in time) 20 to 40 hours would be somewhere between $40 and $80 Million.

Remember, this also isn't the total cost being that a game with this large of a development budget probably had a similar marketing budget; with how often Uncharted advertisements were on the air (including some spots on very popular shows) the marketing budget may even be larger than the development budget.

What this all means is that a PS3 game like Uncharted probably needs sales that are (at least) 1 Million to truely break even, and probably needs sales that are 1.5 to 2 Million to justify the development of the game (to cover the opportunity loss).

You're assuming a linear relationship between game length and development cost.  Assuming you're even the teensiest bit familiar with programming anything beyond "Hello, World", this is idea is laughable at best.

Modern development teams for 3D games like Uncharted are made up of 80% to 90% of artists; the other 10% to 20% is managers and programmers. If you want a game that is as populated with unique content the artists will have a (roughly) linear increase in work in comparison to the amount of content.

 Uncharted's team was: 6 designers, 18 programmers, ~50 artists/animators, 0 producers (love this last one)