The development of major games is becoming increasingly expensive.
Battlefield 6
Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier shared this information on social media. According to him, these are the figures he has been hearing from American and Canadian developers lately, and in some cases, even more astronomical numbers have been mentioned.
Schreier acknowledged that exceptions do exist, but they are rare. Typically, only studios from other countries can boast AAA game budgets under $300 million.
If Schreier is to be believed, the lion’s share of production game costs in the United States and Canada goes to developers’ salaries and various overhead expenses. Meanwhile, payments to top executives have little impact on the size of game budgets, as these leaders receive most of their compensation in stock rather than cash.
Discussing the reasons for budget increases, Schreier also referred to his article from a year ago, where he pondered on this topic. In it, the journalist wrote that modern AAA games are developed by much larger teams and over a much longer period than a decade ago. All this, combined with pervasive inefficient management and the pursuit of trends, ultimately leads to hundreds of millions of dollars in expenses.