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Large PC and console games cost more to make because publishers keep bigger teams working for longer, build more ambitious games, and—in many cases—continue spending on infrastructure and support after launch. Marketing is another substantial cost, though public figures rarely separate it cleanly from development. Boston Consulting Group (BCG) estimated AAA PC and console budgets grew 6% annually from 2017 to 2022, then projected 8% annual growth through 2028. Over a similar span, BCG reported gaming revenue growth had slowed sharply. Those figures describe a widening financial pressure, not a universal budget or a cost breakdown for every game.
Why are video games so expensive to make?
The biggest driver is labor over time. A large game can require hundreds of specialists across engineering, art, animation, design, writing, audio, production, quality assurance, and other disciplines. Each additional month keeps some or all of those people on payroll. Longer schedules also raise the risk that a project needs more staff, gets delayed, or has to sustain work while technology and plans change.
Scope compounds the effect. Detailed worlds, large amounts of bespoke content, cinematic presentation, complex systems, and support for multiple platforms all require production work and coordination. These demands do not translate into a simple per-feature cost: the schedule, team structure, tools, and reuse of assets all matter.
BCG characterizes AAA production as commonly exceeding $100 million, while McKinsey describes AAA budgets as often above $200 million and projects as taking three to five years. These are broad descriptions from separate analyses, not a shared definition of AAA or a standardized list of audited game budgets. McKinsey’s $200 million–$500 million range is an industry-level characterization, not a price tag that can be assigned to any particular title.
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How much do teams and development time add?
Staffing for years makes payroll a major financial exposure. In a 2025 McKinsey article, Unity president and CEO Matt Bromberg contrasted 300 people working for three years with 100 people working for one year. His example illustrates why a larger team and longer schedule can sharply increase costs and reduce how many projects a studio can complete; it is not a universal cost formula.
Specific Sony figures reported by Axios from a 2023 court filing show the scale reached by two PlayStation productions. Horizon Forbidden West was reported at $212 million over five years, with more than 300 full-time staff. The Last of Us Part II was reported at around $220 million, with around 200 employees. The report drew on a poorly redacted legal filing; these examples are not a standardized dataset, and their accounting scopes should not be assumed identical.
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Longer development does not mean every person on a project is employed for its full duration, nor do these examples establish a typical team size or cost. They do show why a project that stays active for years can accumulate substantial labor costs even before marketing or post-launch operations are counted.
What do the budget and revenue trends show?
BCG’s December 2024 analysis estimated that budgets for AAA PC and console games grew at a 6% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2017 through 2022. It projected 8% CAGR from 2022 through 2028. The latter is a forecast, not a measured outcome. BCG’s supporting chart adjusts costs to 2023 US dollars and includes full games and major expansions while excluding routine downloadable content; publisher identities are anonymized.
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BCG’s reported revenue figures show a different pace: gaming revenue grew at 13% CAGR from 2017 to 2021, then 1% from 2021 to 2023. The firm projected 5% CAGR from 2023 to 2028. Revenue covers gaming broadly, so these figures are not a direct like-for-like return calculation for the AAA PC and console budgets above. The periods also differ. Taken together, however, the estimates indicate why the industry faces pressure when costly projects rise faster than the market’s revenue growth.
That mismatch can encourage publishers to make fewer, larger bets, as BCG argues, but it does not prove that budget growth alone caused any particular delay, cancellation, or studio closure. Public budgets are selectively disclosed, and their scopes vary; a handful of blockbuster figures cannot establish the median cost of making a game.
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Why do live-service games cost more after launch?
A game built to run for years has continuing costs beyond its initial development. BCG identifies data centers, matchmaking, community engagement, operations, and player support as significant spending areas for live-service games. Ongoing content and updates also require teams to keep working after release.
These expenses are not interchangeable with a one-time development budget. A reported figure may cover the initial build, a longer period of support, or only part of a game’s lifecycle. Unless a publisher states the accounting scope, readers should not assume a headline budget includes years of operations.
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How much of a game’s budget goes to marketing?
There is no comparable public industry-wide series that cleanly separates marketing from development across publishers, so a single typical percentage is not established. One clearly separated example comes from CD PROJEKT’s October 2023 investor-day summary: its preliminary figures for the Phantom Liberty expansion were around PLN 275 million in production expenditures and approximately PLN 95 million for the global marketing campaign. These figures concern one expansion, not an industry ratio.
The example shows why a headline total can obscure distinct activities. Production pays to create the game or expansion; marketing pays to promote it. A disclosed campaign figure should not be generalized to other games, regions, platforms, or release strategies.
BCG also points to user-acquisition costs as a pressure for mobile games, where privacy restrictions have made targeting and campaign measurement harder. That mobile-specific challenge is not a substitute for evidence about console launch-marketing budgets.
Why can’t famous game budgets be treated as the average?
Publishers rarely disclose full budgets, and the figures that do become public can cover different things: production, marketing, a major expansion, or support over a longer period. They may be reported in different currencies and on different accounting bases. BCG’s growth analysis uses inflation-adjusted costs, while an individual publisher disclosure may be a preliminary nominal figure.
- Check the scope: Is the amount for development alone, marketing, an expansion, or post-launch support?
- Check the period and team: A multi-year project and its staff count reveal production scale, but not necessarily every cost included in the disclosed amount.
- Check the source and date: A company disclosure, a figure reported from a legal filing, and an analyst estimate have different evidentiary status.
- Avoid false averages: A few blockbuster examples show that costs can reach a particular scale; they do not reveal the median budget or prove that every game has the same cost pressures.
Without consistent disclosures, there is no reliable basis here for saying what share of every game’s total goes to labor, marketing, or ongoing service. The clearest conclusion is narrower: large teams, long schedules, broader production ambitions, and continuing operations all create more cost exposure, while BCG’s revenue estimates show growth cooling over the same broad period.
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