Definitely, it’s expected to be amazed at the whopping amounts game developers allocate for their mainstream games; but of course, they would tend to restrict their budgets through cost-cutting. However, with the tough competition going on in the gaming industry, it’s no wonder why big company players spend almost everything just have their game on everybody’s home. They spend too much, their making themselves a place not only in the charts but also in history as some of the most expensive video game plays ever produced. Here are the top 10 most expensive video game budgets ever:
The 10th: Killzone 2
Price: $45 million
Probably the most looked forward to PS3 games, and something that’s been in development for nearly 4 years, Killzone 2′s operating plan was initially $20 million. As it was set out to be developed further, its budget went up to $40 million, and a lot of approximations place it at $45 million. The rumored number that’ll kill you? It’s also estimated to amount up to $56 million – this wasn’t confirmed by anyone at Guerrilla.
The 9th: Final Fantasy XII
Price: $48 million
Teenagers and adults alike will never forget the enthralling experience brought by Final Fantasy. The Final Fantasy franchises have been known for their remarkable superiority, length and complete development value. They have also been acknowledged as some of the most expensive video games of all time to come out from Japan, and Final Fantasy XII had a budget of a whopping $48 million, discounting any marketing costs. The sequel, Final Fantasy XIII, is speculated to also have at least a 50% higher budget; though, this has not been made formal yet.
The 8th: LA Noire
Price: $50 million
No player would expect a crime video game to be this big. L.A. Noire was recently quoted as “one of the most expensive video games of all time in development”. While this might have been overstated in order to shine some limelight on Australia’s game designers, it’s no hush-hush that Rockstar has given LA Noire a colossal budget, upwards of $50 million, to create a truly movielike video game, where most of 1940s Los Angeles has been reconstructed; question is, would it be worth the expense? Let’s wait if this will be one of the most expensive video games of all time.
The 7th: All Points Bulletin
Price: $50 million
“APB: All Points Bulletin” has been in development close to five years now, and Realtime Worlds have often identified that it’s the most expensive video games of all time they’ve ever ran on. The official budget is exactly $50 million, but Realtime Worlds is set to devote millions each year supporting and escalating the MMO.
The 6th: Halo 3
Price: $55 million
Halo 3 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and Microsoft; this game topped the wish list of every avid gamer they virtually had to allocate an unlimited budget on Halo 3, as it had to be the best and most impressive game in almost all aspects when it was released. Not only it is one of the most expensive video games of all time, it is also overly funded in terms of promotional ads, adding $200 million on the ledger.
The 5th: Metal Gear Solid 4
Price: $60 million
The leading, handsomest and most multifaceted Metal Gear Solid game, one with hours and hours of cut scenes, amazing production values and one of the best graphics at its time, Metal Gear Solid 4 took four full years to make, at a price tag of $60 million, joint between Kojima Productions and Sony.
The 4th: Too Human
Price: $60+ million
“Too Human” ended up “Too Bad”. Too Human met many concerns during its improvement time; the biggest wave that brought it down was due to developer Silicon Knights who abandoned the engine and started making their own — at a time when the game was almost complete. This added at least another $10 million to the financial plan, as sources state.
The 3rd: Shenmue
Price: $70 million
The former king of the most expensive video games of all time for nearly 10 years, Shenmue’s budget, was unheeded of at the time of its development — a $70 million budget for a SEGA Dreamcast game. Shenmue totally provided the “gamer’s delight”; wide, explorable areas, a complete weather system, and a lot of fine details and features; all these unavailable in today’s videogames. However, this was overlooked by most gamers, leading to flunk sales return.
The 2nd: Gran Turismo 5
Price: $80 million
What’s set to become the biggest and greatest racing game of all time, has become one of the most expensive video games of all time. Gran Turismo has been around development for over 5 years now, and features over thousands of cars in different makes, each painstakingly recreated for with extreme realistic look and perfection in mind. Its formal budget as of mid 2008 was $60 million, and a couple years later once the game hits the stores, it will reach an astounding $80 million, rendering it the second most expensive video games of all time.
The one and only, Grand Theft Auto IV
Price: $100 million
On the subject of absolute production values, pure amount of features and specifics; no video game beats Grand Theft Auto 4. The range of the production makes any other game inferior to it: thousands of people worked tirelessly on the game for more than three and a half years. They did every little thing to make the gaming experience rich and unique; from studying New York city with cameras that recorded city traffic for months, to getting in contact with more than a thousand just to obtain the rights to the countless music tracks that can be heard in-game. There’s more than enough content in the game to keep the typical gamer engrossed for not less than 100 hours. There should be, having a budget of $100 million, GTA 4 is considered the most expensive video games of all time.
