While the video game industry, which has become the locomotive of the global entertainment industry, has been facing an unprecedented cost increase in recent years, AAA games, which we describe as giant productions, have now begun to routinely exceed the 300 million dollar threshold. In the gaming world, which, unlike the film industry, is a very closed box when it comes to budget items, leaked documents and industry insider reports show that modern digital entertainment production has surpassed even Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters.
The latest data shared by Bloomberg’s senior correspondent Jason Schreier reveals striking facts about how this unsustainable growth is shaping the future of the gaming world. Behind the Scenes of Costs: Why Is It So Expensive? Game development processes have reached massive proportions, especially in North American-based studios, with staff salaries and development time increasing. The lion’s share of a game’s budget is not executive bonuses, but the salaries of thousands of software developers, designers and artists spanning years.
For example, leaked documents proved that productions such as “The Last of Us Part II” and “Horizon: Forbidden West” at the end of the PlayStation 4 era cost 200 million dollars. However, when we move on to the PlayStation 5 generation, the fact that the development budget of “Spider-Man 2” alone has reached 300 million dollars, excluding marketing expenses, clearly shows where the bar has been raised. 🔸The Difference between Indie, AA and AAA in the Game World Jason Schreier states that the figures he has heard recently are pronounced as “300 million dollars and sometimes much more”.
These figures only cover the production phase of the game; when items such as advertising and physical distribution are added, the cost reaches half a billion dollars. Mathematical Impasse: How Many Sales Are Required for Profitability? In a scenario where AAA games are sold for around 70 dollars and the studio pockets approximately 49 dollars per copy, just to amortize a budget of 300 million dollars. Since huge marketing budgets are not included in this calculation, it becomes a necessity to push the 10 million sales threshold in order to make a real profit.
Although these figures are achievable for giants such as Rockstar Games or Activision, this situation poses a serious risk for the rest of the industry. Low Budget Success Stories: Efficiency is in the Foreground Against the financial pressure created by huge budgets, it seems that some studios have achieved great success with more focused and budget-friendly projects in recent years. “Astro Bot”, which won the “Game of the Year” award of 2024, created a shock wave in the industry by achieving this title with a budget of approximately 50-75 million dollars.
Similarly, it is said that the highly anticipated “Ghost of Yotei” was completed at a cost of $60 million, and “Resident Evil Requiem” was completed at a cost of less than $100 million. The most extreme example came from France. The awards record holder of 2025, “Clair Obscur: Expedition 33”, proved that a big budget is not always synonymous with quality, with its jaw-dropping quality despite being developed with a budget of less than 10 million dollars.
In the face of this excessive cost increase, the industry will either turn to smaller and more efficient teams, or AAA games will try to exist in the risky world by remaining only under the monopoly of very large companies.
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