The value of growing AAA video games continues to balloon at a rapid rate, with most main video games being launched now costing upwards of $100 million on the very least, and at tims much more. Two pretty current main releases by Sony, actually, value greater than twice as a lot.
The info comes, funnily sufficient, by a poorly redacted doc submitted by Sony as half of the continued Microsoft vs FTC trial. Though elements of the textual content within the doc are blanked out, the redacted textual content continues to be seen and readable. You can view it under (by way of journalist Tom Warren on Twitter).
As per the doc, Horizon Forbidden West, which launched in 2022, had a improvement finances of $212 million. Its improvement lasted 5 years, working from 2017 to 2022, with Guerrilla using over 300 full-time workers at peak headcount. Meanwhile, the event of 2020’s The Last of Us Part 2, which ran from 2014 to 2020, value over $220 million, with Naughty Dog using over 200 full-time workers on the peak of manufacturing.
The doc additionally appears to point that these prices had been associated to manufacturing solely, and didn’t embrace expenditure on issues reminiscent of advertising.
Back in 2021, former Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shawn Layden – who left Sony in 2019 – mentioned that the place all main AAA PS4 exclusives had had improvement prices of over $100 million, these prices would possible be twice as a lot for PS5 titles. Read extra on that (*2*).
Sony did nice job on the doc redactions… not ???? https://t.co/aPQgk9JU8L pic.twitter.com/5rJQbZbbd0
— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) June 28, 2023
