Average Budget For Major, Multi-Platform Games Is $18-28 Million

An anonymous reader passes along this excerpt from Develop: "The average development budget for a multiplatform next-gen game is $18-$28 million, according to new data. A study by entertainment analyst group M2 Research also puts development costs for single-platform projects at an average of $10 million. The figures themselves may not be too surprising, with high-profile games often breaking the $40 million barrier. Polyphony's Gran Turismo 5 budget is said to be hovering around the $60 million mark, while Modern Warfare 2's budget was said to be as high as $50 million."

Re:Half the cost for another platform?

[rJah]

I read somewhere (maybe slashdot story or an ars technica article, can't remember) that multi platform games are dificult to develop because of the underlying hardware differences, specifically the CPU(s) and they have to take the number and types of CPUs installed in the system into account. For example, the PS3 has 1 GP core an several vector cores while PCs have 1, 2 or 4 GP cores, and the threading systems have to be completely different. And XBox has a different CPU as well (3 PPC cores, but I may have made it up). The PS3 also has far less RAM than an average PC, and this also has to be taken into account while deevloping games.

Re:Half the cost for another platform?

[laird]

Exactly. Getting something to run on an Xbox 360, a PS3 and a Wii is very hard because they are very different platforms. So while there are frameworks and tools that help get the code running on all platforms, so the differences between the hardware is less of a hassle than it used to be, it's a lot of work making the game run *well* on all platforms. For example, you can't use the same 3d models or textures on a Wii and a PS3 or Xbox 360, so you need to redo them (unless you want the PS3 and Xbox 360 to look like a Wii). And, of course, each company has its own approval process, with its own UI standards, etc., as well as unique hardware to be taken into account (e.g. Wiimote). What this means is that while you can reuse the core logic, level design, etc., there's still tons of work to do for each additional platform.

Re:Shouldn't be surprising

[slim]

New companies make smaller games. Bear in mind these figures are for "major" games.

World of Goo was made by two self-employed men in under a year.

Re:Marketing Budgets can dwarf Dev Costs

[Anonymous Coward]

"GTAIV would of had similar if not more, being a multi platform title."

God dammit! It's "would HAVE had"!

no.. 200 million for marketing mw2.

[leuk_he]

The LA Times report also claims that the marketing costs of Modern Warfare 2 hit close to $200 million - a staggering figure for a video game marketing campaign. [develop-online.net]

Now choose your professions. Marketing of coding. ;)

Re:Shouldn't be surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

...many film schools have SAG Student Film Agreements with the Guild to allow SAG actors to work in their projects. SAGIndie was formed in 1997 to promote independent filmmaking using SAG actors; SAG also has Low Budget Contracts that are meant to encourage the use of SAG members on films produced outside of the major studios and to prevent film productions from leaving the country

Stop quote mining.

Re:Shouldn't be surprising

[slim]

But all you want isn't just a voice, what you want is someone who can take someone else's movements and do a voice so well that even without a human body, you can still pick up on things like, emotions, fears, desires, interest, etc.

Just a nitpick: typically the voices are recorded first, and the animator matches the actions to the voice.

In movies, they're increasingly doing mo-cap and voice recording at the same time (e.g. Andy Serkis acting Gollum or Kong). Game cut scenes would be improved by using decent actors and adopting this technique.

Re:More complicated and less fun

[Anonymous Coward]

He mentioned Theif, which was the original First Person Looter. It started the whole "Stealth" idea in a game, which up to that point was completely non-existant.

Uh, no, Metal Gear for the MSX2 computer in Japan and Europe and the NES version in the U.S. was the first well known stealth game, and that came out in 1987.