The Last of Us Part 2 Budget Was $220M, While Horizon Forbidden West Cost $212M Per Court Documents

A new document from Sony reveals that The Last of Us Part 2 budget was $220 million while Horizon Forbidden West cost $212 million.

[italiangamer]

And every cent was both well spent and it shows in the quality of these titles.

[excaliburps]

Insane how much money it take to develop a game.

[--Onilink--]

Its getting (if not already there) to unsustainable levels to be honest.

Game costs getting close to $1b with marketing and other costs included is just ridiculous, not to mention needing so much time before you can start seeing the return in investment

[Dirtnapstor]

Time = Money
They both had to spend the time to make it perfect... and both titles are nearly perfect in all respects.

[DarXyde]

It's certainly jarring, but all is not lost and I actually think games can take less time and cost if we make a couple of sustainable changes:

1. Use AI as a support to staff. This is a bit of a dangerous proposition because it risks replacing the labour force (corporate wet dream stuff right there), but if you can use AI effectively to support development, you eliminate crunch and by extension ballooning overtime costs and your developers are better rested, happier, and ready to put their best for forward. Also frees up people to pursue other projects where a studio output can greatly increase, maybe getting us to PS2/PS3 levels of Naughty Dog output. Insomniac is already quite prolific, imagine how AI support could help. Again though, it should be used to reduce workload on a single project and allow for more projects to be done, not as justification to eliminate their workforce.

2. Be okay with big studios making smaller, creative pet projects. We're definitely not seeing an explosive growth in creative titles anymore and we're often locked in with sequels. Innovation is risky. I hope people would be willing to give smaller games from studios like Guerilla and Naughty Dog a sincere chance.

[MIDGETonSTILTS17]

@onilink: Sony and Nintendo manage.

[frostypants]

I'd argue they're more difficult to make than most movies of the same budget.

[THUNDERMARE]

That is because gaming industry size is getting to the point where investing 200M is worth it.

[--Onilink--]

@midget

Do you think its a coincidence that Sony is getting into GaaS and Nintendo has so many lower scale/scope titles?

They both are working with strategies to mitigate just how expensive and long game development has become, in order to have a more consistent revenue stream between those big and expensive releases.

Not to mention when you are talking about such massive costs, the need for it to be a massive high is even higher

[Aloymetal]

100%!
TLOU 2 and HFWest, two of the most visually stunning, polished and goty contender games for ALMOST the price of Craig Infinite...

[ClayRules2012]

Wholeheartedly agree! Goodness, the polish on both games🤯

TLOU2 & Horizon FW, two sequels that improved upon nearly every area of their first games shortcomings (and knowing both games were masterpieces & incredible games) the sequels delivered, again, in wonderful ways, showcasing the pedigree both studios teams have.

2 sequels, that for me, without question stand talk right next to Phenomenal sequels such as Uncharted 2 & Mass Effect 2!

Money well spent/hard work paid off for the teams!

[notachance]

meanwhile let me show you the new ships as star citizen passes the $590 million mark..

[CantThinkOfAUsername]

If you've played the game, or seen it played, you'd understand that $590M is nothing compared to the scope and work put into the game. There's not a single game out there like Star Citizen. No Man's Sky, Elite Dangerous, Starfield or anything else.

[Minute Man 721]

@CantThink

And when is it officially releasing again?

[bloop]

@Minute Man: When chumps stop throwing their wallets at them.

[Vengeance1138]

Imagine trying to recoup such costs in a subscription model lol not possible.

[Deeeeznuuuts]

My thoughts exactly, I just can't wrap my head around how they plan on releasing a steady stream of high quality games while recouping the cost and making profit.

[crazyCoconuts]

If they=MS, they charge a much higher annual sub > $200/yr, and Gold is virtually free for them so they have more money to play with presumably. PS extra is only $40 more than PS Essential, and essential is already giving away great games monthly. So I think there's far less dollars to dedicate to the sub service... PS would have to raise the price of Extra or create another tier if they wanted to do day 1 releases

[-Mika-]

First, 15% of PS revenue came from first party exclusives. We found this out today in the court documents. That not much. Sony and MS are making the most of their money off microtransactions and subscrpitons. Second, that 220 million over the cost of four or five years. That 44 million or 55 million a year. That is something you need to keep in mind.

[RpgSama]

"15% of PS revenue came from first party exclusives. We found this out today in the court documents. That not much."

That's not much?! That is A LOT, how many first party games are released every year Vs all third party games released in a year on the platform (AAA, AA, indie, shovelware) + Ps Plus?

4 or 5 First party games vs Hundreds of third party games in a year + a game service?

The numbers speak for themselves, 15% of total revenue out of a handful of games is a LOT.

[QuantumMechanic]

Sony makes most of their money from 3rd-party royalties and microtransactions, with a small amount coming from Plus subscriptions.

And... $44-55M/year/AAA game. Sony's AAA release cadence is ~2-4 AAA games per year.

[ThinkThink]

You would have to have 40 million plus subscribers in order to support those types of games long-term.

[crazyCoconuts]

Nothing Inherent in a sub model that would make it impossible...25M subs, $10 of each customer's fees would go to each game like this to break even

[PhillyDonJawn]

$14.99×30,000,000= $449,700,000 a month
Doubled it in 1 month

[Tacoboto]

Sony's lawyers don't even know how to use a permanent marker, do you think their fans are going to know basic math?

[PhillyDonJawn]

Lmao

[QuantumMechanic]

Are you forgetting the payments that have to be made for the hundreds of other games made available on/produced for such a service?

[isarai]

You do realize that $449,700,000 a month is being divided across over 400 separate games across the service, not to mention the cost of keeping the service running, these have to be stored somewhere. So actually

$449,700,000 ÷ 400 = $1,124,250

So it would have to be up on the service for roughly 191 months to break even

[Tacoboto]

@Quantum Are you forgetting that subscription revenue is only just one of many revenue streams? Are you also forgetting that subscriptions are recurring revenue streams?

@Isarai couldn't even copy a number right and just divides by the game count for reasons. Lol "so actually!" 🤣

[PhillyDonJawn]

@isarai first of all your equation dont make sense, the 449,700,000 is revenue not the pot or cost theyre using to pay developers for games. 400 games don't all cost the same to get on gamepass and are accumulated over years and the upfront payment deal covers the games to be on service for years. The figure I gave you is literally just 1 month. They're not paying every game dev 1 million per month to be on the service. They pay $___ to be on service for ___ amount of months/years and a user bonus based on a specific amount of users playing the game. 449,700,000×12 is over 5b a year.

[isarai]

@Tacoboto

Sure fixed it, didn't even change the outcome, oh you mean just like PhillyDonJawn sitting here acting like 100% if the sub fees will go to only one game in the service in a month, sh!t makes even less sense 😂 I'm simply matching his oversimplified extrapolation with my own oversimplified extrapolation. If you have better information of how the revenue is split by all means share, I'll wait...

@Philly

And this is based on....? And where's the operating cost?

[QuantumMechanic]

Tacoboto: Nope on either count. You can decimate any revenue stream (down to per-quarter or per-deum units). Also, the long-term vision for MS is everything as software-as-a-service. They'd love nothing more than to have GamePass become the only option for consumption.

[PhillyDonJawn]

@isarai educate yourself. Here an example. Xbox paid 2.3m to have ark 2 on the service. For 1 year. That's under 200k per month (kills your post instantly). Do the math. Let's go on the high end. Let's say they pay an average 5m for 400 games to be on the service for 1 year. That's still only 2 billion a year in cost and thats over estimating. When the service is bringing around 5b a year.

[andy85]

That would be interesting if it was correct. How many are paying 14.99? My Ultimate was 100 for 3 years with the gold upgrade trick. You realise how many are actually doing that when it costs 5 times less. Plus 30 million don't have ultimate, what about the cheaper tier. And what about Microsoft rewards? You can literally earn your GP cost every month doing those. That 449m is absolutely nothing like you think

[4Sh0w]

lol, and they just raised the price.

But regardless people just don't understand the power of a sub service which compounds based on recurring payments. It's sort of how insurance gets so rich, recurring payments by lots of people builds alot of wealth of course the bills are much bigger but so are the payments. Now Microsoft is likely well over $500mil a month and sure that doesn't go to one game but do you really think all those indies & games older than a few years dudnt get theres already. Any way you cut it though just wrap your mind around the fact that Gamepass made more than the cost of 2 of ps5 exclusives in 1 month & thats just Gamepass, sure these companies lose money some qtrs, but that's the upside & downs of biz, still $400-$500mil in a month from Gamepass is just crazy.

[mudakoshaka]

True. But imagine 100 million subscribers regularly paying 10 dollars a month. That's a billion dollars a month. It is hard and takes time to reach that continuous stream of subscribers but imagine the possibilities. Recouping the costs for AAA games would be easy. And having so many subscribers would hopefully result in many AAA games.

[Vengeance1138]

If we're just going to make up numbers why not imagine 200M subscribers or 300M!

GamePass currently is just over 25 M... maybe in the next 10yrs they'll get to 100

[mudakoshaka]

@Vengeance1138 100 million is a modest number. Spotify has over half a billion active users. That is users generering money either through paid subscriptions or ad revenue. So nobody is making numbers up. Music is a different product compared to games, but the amount of gamers is growing everyday. Microsoft is aiming for the long run. That it will take 10 or 20 years to accomplish their purpose with Game Pass.

[Chevalier]

You do realize according to Xbox own reports they've missed their own Gamepass targets 2 years in a row and have stalled to about 25 million right?!

[mudakoshaka]

@Chevalier I’m not saying they will get it. I am explaining the business model they are chasing. They are far off from making it happen, and they have had several bumps along the way in the form of lack of good first-party games and also lackluster upcoming games. Fallout and Skyrim are really cool IPs but I don’t think they move consoles. Starfield won’t either. It will be a great game I assume but not a console seller. Netflix is a good example of something that was really on a roll only to stumble. A few years ago they had great show after great show. Everyone thought that they will dominate for decades. Bad decisions by the execs lead them to their current situation. Great shows were canceled and investing in bad and mediocre shows that most did not want to watch proved to be the wrong business model for Netflix. They went from quality to quantity. I have not watched Netflix for months. Used to be my go-to streaming service…not anymore

[ChasterMies]

29M Game Pass Subscribers paying $10 to $15 per month (until the price hike takes effect) means $290M to $435M per month. That’s enough for a Last of Us or Horizon each and every every month, or at least one of those per quarter as Microsoft plans. If PS+ Extra and Premium grow large enough, we could see day one releases on PlayStation.

[toadie]

Too bad there was nothing left in the budget for a better Last of us 2 script writer

[JEECE]

Too bad there isn't enough power left in your brain for a joke that isn't 3 years old.

[toadie]

You post 3 year old news, you get 3 year old jokes. simple.

[anast]

Nice

[godofboobees]

Too bad you never played it.

[frostypants]

Why? Because he like many didn't like the story? The writing was high school emo angsty crap made to make teenagers think they were experiencing something deep. You'll laugh about not realizing it one day. But everything else about it was well done. It was a technical show piece.

[toadie]

Unfortunately I did. The problem seems to be you never played the first one for comparison.

[mudakoshaka]

It was probably written by 21 year olds from an Antifa camp.

[anast]

People won't bite on this stuff anymore. You have to be more subtle.

[TheEnigma313]

still salty about Joel?

[toadie]

No. I'm salty about poor writing and characterization. Things like Tommy being vehemently Ellies desire for revenge at the beginning of the game, to flipping around and putting pressure on Ellie to get revenge after she's pregnant and ready to settle down. You know, basic writing.

[Chevalier]

"You post 3 year old news"

Really so we knew the budget for TLOU2 3 years ago?

[MetroidFREAK21]

Haven't started HFW yet, but I really enjoyed TLOU Part 2. Not as memorable as Part 1, but still a great story I thought despite the controversy

[Aloymetal]

You're in for a treat, get ready for this beauty...
https://www.youtube.com/wat...

[MetroidFREAK21]

Oh I know the game looks outstanding visually. I still need to finish Zero Dawn before I jump into Forbidden West

[Hereandthere]

Zero Dawn runs at a locked 60 fps on ps5

[MetroidFREAK21]

Yep, I know. I have the game, just need to play more of it

[goldwyncq]

It was actually more memorable because of the controversy surrounding it.

[ApocalypseShadow]

Damn that's a lot of money!

Crazy to think what games like Skies of Arcadia, Blood Will Tell, etc would be like with that kind of money. Hint hint. Wink wink.

[andy85]

This is what makes me wonder about Xboxes system. This is only 2 games, which with advertising I assume is $500m+, and Halo Infinite was over 500m too, a billion total in 3 games. The PS games sold the numbers to recoup that...But if they're day one on Gamepass, how is it recouped. Their revenue was 16b, but whats profit? If its 2 billion, that's half your profit in 3 games (providing profit is $2B which I doubt with paying for all the games on GP), how are all these 'free' AAA games sustainable. Windows surely has to be propping it

[PhillyDonJawn]

That's 500m over the course of development. Halo was in development 5-6 years. 16b revenue is 1 year. So those games are only costing under 100m a year.

[Abnor_Mal]

Dang, a game from Sony cost twice as much as what MS paid for Ninja Theory.

Insomniac has already tripled their worth since being acquired, I would guess.

[Levii_92]

The Sony triple A bloat at its finest.

[Abnor_Mal]

Way better than an anorexic Redfall, and bulimic Halo Infinite.

[TheEnigma313]

Something MS needs to adopt. They have been atrocious

[PhillyDonJawn]

🤔. I'm noticing a pattern in AAA games.

[ocelot07]

But we want say one games on our cheap monthly subs. Sony is just greedy grrrrrr /s

[BlaqMagiq1]

Someone will find a way to twist this into something negative. As if these games would've been just as memorable with a lower budget.

No one should be surprised by these costs in today's era.

[talocaca]

And I think this shows why Microsoft has struggled to release GOTY contenders for a few years now (other than Forza).

Insomniac's output is particularly impressive IMO, but Guerrilla is not far behind. God of War was also stellar. Ghost of Tsushima was another brilliant new IP. And even Astrobot found an audience.

[got_dam]

Yeah! And that's why xbox sucks!

[TheColbertinator]

All that money and not much to show

[Abnor_Mal]

They should have been on the ball with all the studios that they previously bought instead of only relying on Bethesda.

[JEECE]

The next time you are complaining about free-to-play, drm, always online games, microtransactions, unnecessary multiplayer in games that should be singleplayer, live service/Games as a service, and games being broken at launch, just remember that you also think this.

[YodaCracker]

Considering how long Starfield has been in development and how ambitious it is, I could certainly see it taking the spot for the most expensive game. Until GTA VI releases of course. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the first billion dollar game.

[Hereandthere]

Whats so expensive? No voice actors, old game engine from 2005.

[Charlieboy333]

Wait.....Starfield has no voice acting ? Seriously ?

[JEECE]

What? No voice actors?

[anast]

The OP means the protagonist won't be voiced. The main problem with Starfield is that it's a sci-fi game where they won't give you an option to play as an alien.

[MIDGETonSTILTS17]

And didn’t Halo Infinite cost $500 million?

This is why M$ wants to eliminate exclusives: they are expensive projects with the highest expectations for quality. This makes them inherently risky investments; but apparently riskier for some than others…

[2moda5gamer]

and people still complain for a rise in gaming purchase costs since 15 years ago...

[TOTSUKO]

Actually I’m surprised it’s not higher. Marvel movies average $200 million and that only takes a fraction of time to film compared to years it takes to develop a game especially with the unhealthy level of crunch.

[Broncob]

Who cares

[XBManiac]

Halo Infinite surpased 1.000 millions. Waiting for Microsoft budgets side of the process... Popcorn time!

[anast]

That has to be double what MSXbox puts into their games.

[mastershredder]

More people and contractors to employ, world-wide localization and distribution = $

Not the same as spending money to squash competition out of existence.

[got_dam]

There is no way the deal would "squash the competition out of existence." Sont is dominant by an incredible margin. It make them mush less dominant, but they will still be dominant. As people on here like to point out, Sony has all the best exclusive games. Their core audience will still buy their consoles in the in the 10s of millions to get the next game from their favorite developers. MS as shit the bed so many times that this deal won't change the core gamer opinion. Call of duty sells well for sure, but it is still only a fraction of the revenue the industry generates. This deal could end up being a 70 billion dollar disaster for Microsoft if the gamers still don't by Xbox products.

[Demetrius]

I been thinkin bout givin last of us 2 another chance despite them making that mf decision killing Joel off for no reason, horizon fw is one of the best sequels of the decade

[got_dam]

It's good. And killing Joel does not equal no joel. The game still punches the feeling in the gut every bit as hard as the first one. If anything it is more distressing. The motivation more conflicted. I suggest you give it another shot and keep the mind open.