It is always interesting, at least to me, to see a game’s numbers in terms of financial costs. And I am sure others are interested in that part of game development too.
Some games cost an x amount of money but did not make the same amount when they launched, and some games made double the money when they were released. In the late hours, I stumbled upon a piece of very interesting information that showed the exact numbers of total cost versus the amount of money made after a game was released, so I decided to share it with you.
The first game that caught my attention was Red Dead Redemption 2. The game supposedly cost from $370 million to $570 million to make, and after its release, it made around $1.38 billion back in 2018. The next game, which is a fan-favourite is Uncharted 4. This game needed around $50 million to be completed, not including marketing and after its release, it made around $1 billion.
And the best of them all, Marvel Spider-Man. This game cost $300 million to be developed, and when it was released, it made a whopping $6.8 billion. Wow, what a number. The game that caused the most controversy around its release is Elden Ring. This game had mixed opinions coming from the public, but that brought in $6.85 billion, while it cost $200 million to be made.
I almost forgot to mention the one that baffled me the most. Fortnite needed around $200m to be developed. When Fortnite was released, it made more than $5.4b.
If you have any other information like this, please share it with us in the comments below. And also, which game is worth the numbers? Why?
How could Spider-Man have made 6.8$ billion, when it sold just over 33 million copies. The figure is the total sum of Playstation revenue, not just a single game!
There’s no way Elden Ring cost that much to make. Fromsoft doesn’t have that kind of money, that’s Sony blockbuster territory.
Where did you get the info for this piece ? Everything feels off in the numbers
Hello , i have a project ready to be developed in to a game. I would like for it to be on the Playstation platform.
This game will be a fighting arena game, i wont go into deep details but all i will say with no ego that it will be the number one game in this genre of games, i would be really happy for some one to get back to me on how to start developing this great fighting arena game, and you will feel what it was really like in the past to enter the arena and fight with such a loud atmosphere and environment.
Thank you Charlie Scanlan.
If anyone takes the time to google and look at multiple sources, as someone currently researching game development costs I can tell you that almost every figure presented in this article is incorrect. The development cost on Red Dead Redemption 2 was 150 million. The budget of 40 million for Uncharted shown here does not include its marketing budget. etc etc.
Thanks for the feedback, but I am curious, where did you find that number for RDR2? Please do share your sources, so that I can fact-check too.