Ben-DutkaIrrational Games founder and esteemed Bioshock creator Ken Levine recently spoke to New York Times .
But maybe they should've asked him to clarify some numbers.
The article in question says the upcoming Bioshock Infinite (slated to launch next week) may have cost publisher Take-Two Interactive $100 million to develop, with another $100 million going towards marketing. The game has been in the works for over four years and has indeed suffered several delays.
And as everyone knows, the cost of game development skyrocketed this past generation. Grand Theft Auto V , for example, has been reported to cost over $137.5 million, with another $69 million – $109.3 million set to be spent on advertising and general promotion. Most developers have complained of the high cost of AAA productions, which is why we've seen a surge of smaller downloadable titles, microtransactions, and Kickstarter. We have no doubt that Bioshock Infinite was an expensive project, too, but it seems The Times is over-estimating the cost.
That's because Levine just Tweeted :
"200 million for Infinite? Did someone send some checks to the wrong address?"
One would have to assume that as creative director and studio founder, he'd probably know. Then again, maybe Take-Two is throwing more money at the game than even Levine would've guessed. Either way, it seems obvious that Bioshock Infinite is going to have to be a very big seller…
Related Game(s): Bioshock Infinite
100 million on marketing. Hell no!. Halo gets around 30-40 million on marketing and damn if you don't know halo is coming there's something wrong with you.
I have seen nothing about Bioshock infinite that just doesn't scream 100 million on marketing to me
IGN just awarded this a heavy duty score. We can't really no for sure just yet because it's IGN. And IGN has guys like Mitch Dyer who should just quit…
Looks promising though.
Last edited by Temjin001 on 3/22/2013 1:24:44 PM
You mean the same Mitch Dyer that gave Gears of War: Judgment a 9.2 after admitting that it is pretty much like every other Gears games save for a "few new bells and whistles"?
Yeah, he's a moron.
I'm sure it's a good sign, different reviewer.
Yeah I'm excited I have read nothing about the game I want to go into it blind I just scrolled down to see the score and was really happy with what I saw 🙂
I actually have no idea how much it costs to develop an AAA game.
Thinking of series like AC. How much of the budget is marketing?
I dont understand how one could spend over $100 million to make to game. It's all computer animated ! How does it cost so much, what are they spending it on ? Just insane.
It goes towards Starbucks to keep the programmers awake
I just saw the commercial, it was epic. I hope it makes tons of profit.
Watched the first 10 minutes on a youtube channel. Looks amazing.
100M on development is really hard to believe!
let alone 100M on advertisement!
GT5 and GTAIV 2 of the biggest, most expensive, longest in development games we have had this gen both cost around 80M in development costs!
and they were in development for WAY longer than infinite, with a development studio WAY larger than infinite, with a studio who had to create a new engine!
no way in hell it cost 100M to make!
no way in hell it cost 100M to market either!
theres not that many adds, theres not that much posters and such.
halo 4 got 50M spent in marketing if i remember right and that had posters left right and center!
there were billboards set out on every dam street!
every game shop was littered in halo 4 posters.
every bus, and every bus stop was littered in halo 4 posters!
so was train stations, and cabs.
my god the only thing M$ could of done to promote the game better was start putting up posters on peoples front doors!
no way in hell this cost 200M, both 100M in each development and marketing!
not even GTAV will hit those costs!
not even freaking COD would hit those costs!!!!!!!!!!