Game Development Costs?

Game costs can range wildly, but the average cost for a really grade ''A'' game is probably going to be at least $250k-$1 mill. , althoug some good products have been turned out with much less. One good example I know is Final Fantasy 7 & 8 each rang in at around $2 million EACH.(maybe more) but Myst was something like less than $50k (ive heard as low as $10k)

Im so wary of the obsession with big game budgets. If you dont have an idea how much the budgets are, you arent familiar enough with the industry to get anyone to fund your project.
Look at Rollercoaster Tycoon, one of 1999s top selling games - written by one guy, with another guy part time. Must have cost well under a million dollars ;-)

http://www.positech.co.uk

dont make me bring up deer hunter


--
Float like a butterfly, bite like a crocodile.

To get an idea of the budgets (and sometimes actual costs) for development of games, check out the post-mortems on www.gamasutra.com.

(And the way that the yen has been bouncing in the last few years, it''s really hard to get a good feel of how much they really did spend on the FFVII and FFVIII).

Thanks all for the info.

Just so you know, I''m pretty sure Shenmue cost around $70 million, and I''m almost positive is well over $50. Of course Shenmue is probably the most realistic/interactive game ever produced and it was done by arcade legend Yu Suzuki under Sega''s budget so this isn''t really in comparison to what you are thinking of. I would think most PC games would be less than console games just because most PC games are less expansive, console games tend to have huge worlds where as quake 3 was just an engine slapped together with some maps and character models. Hope that helps,

~WarDekar

Yeah, I doubt you can make an A game with 250 k (I doubt you can make any majour game for that much.) Suppose the game takes 1 year to make. 250k wouldn''t even cover salary, plus there''s office space, new equipment etc.

A good game doesn't laways mean mondo bucks. As said before, good games can be made cheap. Alot of the larger and huge companys have a person for very single job, from level design to item placement. This isn't wrong or stupid to have somebody specialize but it isn't needed. Then, some of the companys that want to have a large game with great graphics will buy the latest 3d modeler ($10,000 or so), alot of research material (when the could go to the library), and many many other things.

Now class, let's review.

Good game, dosn't equal alot of money.

.......
http://www.crosswinds.net/~gaurdianangel

Edited by - Tiso on May 28, 2000 11:31:21 PM

Daikatana: $30M
Makes you wonder...

Y.