ZombiU Was "Not Even Close" to Profitable, No Plans for a Sequel

[Barozi]

osed125 said:

Barozi said:

That's not true at all.

$60m would be in the top ten of most expensive games.

Uncharted 1 and 2 are $20m each
Gears of War was $10m, Gears of War 2 was $12m
Crysis was $22m

Most AAA games should be around $30m.
BUT if it's a multiplat release, then it should definitely cost more. *doesn't want to know Watch Dogs' budget*

ZombiU could very well be at $15m. Even serious Wii games (serious = non-shovelware) approach $10m, so $15-20m is definitely a reasonable estimation.

The top 10 is definitely higher. This image is old, there are definitely much more expensive games that are not there.

You have games that have costed more than $100 million to make (with the biggest exaggeration of all time which has been Star Wars the Old Republic, with $200 million total in budget). 

The image was made or updated in 2012 (The Old Republic numbers are from January 2012) so it's not that old.
What else should be on there ?

GTA V will certainly be there, but it's not out. GT6 is surely cheaper than GT5 (Polyphony said that themselves). Halo 4 maybe but even then the 10th and 9th and 8th place would be $60m.

Also from various Google research I've noticed that there are many unconfirmed numbers flying around. I would only trust the ones coming from the developers or publishers.

Kotaku says Halo 3 was $55m (that's what's in the image), Polygon says it's $30m (and another $30m advertising costs).
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/10/25/spencer-halo-4-is-microsofts-most-expensive-game/


I also don't think that Max Payne 3 had a $105m budget.
Here the salary of people in the industry:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/167355/
About $80k per year,  which means that Rockstar hired 200 people for 6 1/2 years to work on Max Payne 3 or 400 people for 3 1/4 years (time between announcement and release were 3 years).

Btw. after they shipped the game 35 people worked at Rockstar Vancouver:
http://ir.take2games.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=86428&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1712961&highlight=