Game development isn’t for the feint-hearted. While in many ways the cost of the best laptops for game development have come down and the best 3D software like Blender and Unreal Engine are free to use, making the idea of creating a game more attainable, for Triple-A game development budgets are soaring.
Court documents unearthed this week by Game File reveal that three Call of Duty games released between 2015 and 2020 cost close to $2 billion in total to make. Activision’s Patrick Kelly disclosed that development costs for Black Ops III (2015) were $450 million, Modern Warfare (2019) cost $640 million, and the figure for Black Ops Cold War (2020) was a staggering $700 million. The documents relate to a lawsuit brought by victims of the Uvalde school shooting, which alleges that the Call of Duty games promote guns and violence to teenagers.
The $700 million figure is a milestone in that it’s the highest game development budget ever reported, but it’s not the first time that numbers in this ballpark have emerged. In 2023, when the Competition and Markets Authority in the UK blocked the Microsoft and Activision Blizzard Merger, its report on the decision mentioned two games publishers who told them that budgets could be as high as $350 million for Triple-A games, and another reported its most expensive game cost $660 million to develop and a further $550 million to market.
So that’s the second shocker in this story: when you add marketing budgets of these proportions to the already astronomical development costs, a game from a major franchise could cost over a billion dollars to put out.
Why is this happening, and what are the consequences?
(Image credit: Activision)
A major factor behind spiraling development costs is that player expectations have been set at a very high level for Triple-A games. Game worlds need to be more expansive, detailed and complex than ever before, and visuals need to be exceptional. All of this costs time and money.
The consequence is that making a top tier game today is a huge risk for studios as they must sell more than ever to recoup their costs. As a result many are sticking to titles based on established IPs that are a safer bet, rather than taking risks with new ventures. Last year scores of games were cancelled by numerous publishers and thousands of staff laid off, in part due to development costs and the associated risk.
And all of this is happening against the backdrop of an industry that is reckoning with disruption caused by the surge of growth during the pandemic which then fell away. For a good overview of the situation and how it’s affecting artists, take a look at concept artist Sandra Duchiewicz’s article from last summer.
(Image credit: Rockstar Games)
While the budgets of Call of Duty are eye-watering, it’s likely 2025’s biggest game, GTA 6, is going to eclipse them, with a report in The Independent suggesting it has cost $1-$2 billion before marketing.
It could be GTA 6 is the last of this whale-budgeted games, as publishers look to cut costs and save money, and turn to AI tools to help. But the cost of a game doesn’t even guarantee success; Sony‘s Concord is rumoured to have cost $400 and was pulled from release after two weeks and cancelled due to poor sales and reviews.
These budgets aren’t sustainable, and worse they force developers to be cautious and follow trends rather than innovate. 2025 could be the year we see a return to profitable AA game development and a rise in indie game successes, particularly with the release of Nintendo Switch 2.
