A video game blockbuster now costs over $300 million.

According to court documents and other leaks, late-cycle PS4 games like The Last of Us Part II and Horizon: Forbidden West have already exceeded $200 million in cost, excluding marketing. Spider-Man 2 on PS5 reportedly reached $300 million. Staggering. And apparently, this is no longer an exception. According to the latest figures circulating on AAA productions, budgets now exceed $300 million and are sometimes much higher. An important point to note: these estimates concern games developed in North America and do not include executive compensation. The bulk of the cost comes from salaries. In other words, the larger the team and the longer the development process, the more the bill skyrockets. 6 million copies sold just to break even. The calculation is undeniable: for a game sold at $70, with the publisher actually receiving $49 on each sale, you need to sell over 6 million copies just to reach the break-even point on a $300 million budget, not even counting marketing. For Rockstar Games or Activision, nothing insurmountable. For a large part of the industry, however, this model looks more like a desperate gamble. For the past year or two, though, a counter-narrative has been emerging, driven by studios capable of delivering more focused and far less expensive games. Resident Evil Requiem, despite reservations about its length, reportedly cost less than $100 million, which is still colossal. The same is true for Astro Bot, the 2024 Game of the Year, whose budget is estimated to be between $50 and $75 million. Ghost of Yotei reportedly cost around $60 million, proving that a smaller budget doesn't preclude excellence. As for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the 2025 winner, it was reportedly developed in France for less than $10 million, a unique case in a landscape that has become absurd. One question remains: with the rise of AI, will these production costs eventually decrease? Probably…