A new report has emerged which claims that modern AAA game budgets routinely find themselves ballooning to upwards of $300m, a staggering figure that might go some way towards explaining the current state of the industry.
According to a social media post by Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, modern AAA budgets can be difficult to pinpoint thanks to a lack of transparency from publishers, but Schreier says he's "heard...$300 million or more - sometimes much more!" from certain corners of the industry.
Schreier goes on to say that these budgets mainly comprise developer salaries and overheads and "have nothing to do with executive compensation", so for once, it's not (directly, at least) the fault of the C-suite.
In a followup message, Schreier addresses suggestions that 2019's Ghost of Tsushima "cost only $60 million", tracing that rumor to an employee who "left the studio four years before the game even shipped". Chances are the game cost much, much more than that.
Although $300m sounds like a lot, it actually seems to be on the conservative end of major game project budgets. Back in January last year, it was reported that the budget for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold...
