I thought it’d make an interesting thread (if it’s been done before I apologise) to try and compile a list of games, the development cost and how many worked on it. Info can be gathered from the web or actual info if you worked on the game are able to share it.
Grand Theft Auto IV - 1000+ people - approx $100 million
It’s important to note that the cost of actually bringing a game to store shelves and the cost of development are not the same thing. Often times the cost of marketing is lumped in with the total “cost” of the game. And these days, marketing budgets can be several times what the actual development budget was. What it cost to create a game is often not nearly so much as what was eventually spent on promoting the game.
That said, modern development costs are much, much higher than what they once were. This is especially true of major published releases. The level of graphical fidelity and simulation accuracy that a lot of modern games strive for does not come cheap.
I’m not really certain what the value is in maintaining a list of these development costs, though. Especially since very few publishers choose to release the actual numbers. More often than not they just throw out the totals, and as I pointed out earlier this doesn’t give us an accurate idea as to the cost of actual development.
There’s also the fact that I would be much more interested in facts and figures from small-time and indie development.
Yeah, I would be interested in costs of another small developers.
I don’t have precise numbers but for my last mobile game I spent around 600-750 USD in assets (custom graphics, non-custom music and GUI) but I don’t have idea of the total amount I spent with my “free time” (because my time and effort is not free but I haven’t made a calculation of the cost). It was around 3 months working ocassionaly during weekends and evenings though.