Modern Warfare 2 cost revealed

VGarabia: Now, everybody knows that Modern Warfare 2 grossed a whopping $550 million worldwide in first five days of launch. But how much the game cost to produce?

[KingKionic]

200 million...

wow

[Madusha]

Yeah that's huge but it definitely paid off.

[KingKionic]

Yup .

Bobby Kotick is popping champagne bottles everyday .

lol

[nix]

so much only for a game that "does nothing new"? remember people, it really does nothing new.

Kottick is a happy man after making 18 millions out of MW2 though. he will thank you all by giving you overpriced DLCs.

[Darkeyes]

Just imagine if those 200 million would have been put to create a new engine and build a longer single player campaign... 40-50 million to produce and rest for ads and disc sigh.... You know that the industry is in trouble when the marketing cost is nearly 3-4 times the production value...

[hardcore1912]

Yes, you are right. Marketing a game nowadays is becoming more important than the quality of the game itself.

[Winter47th]

200 million for the same rehashed engine & a 5 hour campaign?

[snipermk0]

Give me just 2 million, the original COD 4 mod tools and 3 months and I can make a "mod" that is MUCH better than MW2.

[KRUSSIDULL]

I normaly dont comment but becuse i enjoy just reading them but WTF 200 Million? I think IW tricked Activision look at GTA4 cost 100 Million (New engine and alot of actors and stuff)and Gears of War 2 same engine as the first cost about 10 Million to make I dont think they can handle money.

[badz149]

and only 40-50 mil for the game which is already crazy for a very short and non-dedicated server game!

[Trebius]

The most terrible news for gaming that i could have possibly imagined.

To have a games marketing campaign cost so much more than the game itself is absolutely horrific for the consumers...

Only because the formula works.

If you really think about it...

Even if they spent only 1 mil making the game, and then spend 50 mil on advertising, the game would sell more than enough to cover the expenses and THEN some.

There's no such thing as quality anymore, unless you really have a PASSION for developing games.

The difference between a company like IW and a company like NG, is that one does it not to MASTER the craft of creating a game, they do it SOLELY for the money.

While Naughty Dog creates games because they obviously LOVE to do it, and ENJOY being better than all the other developers combined.

If Infinity Ward (or activision) were to actually try to innovate and CREATE..as opposed to rehash and depend solely on advertising...then they would probably do amazing things...

But they've gone Green-eyed, and now we've lost them as a respectable game developer.

A man that makes a living doing something he LOVES and not for the money, is obviously going to create something more worthwhile than a man that creates something half-assed, just because he knows itll be bought regardless....

FUKC IW...

[maskedwarrior]

A huge part of it must have been for marketing.

[Guido]

The game is amazing and so addicting. Haters can say what they want and I too was skeptical but after playing it for over a week now, I can say this game is one of my all time favorites.

[PopEmUp]

why are you pointing at the ps3 why not 360 and pc as well? and btw stop being a one side idiot

[jammy_70]

because they paid loads of critics it give it 10s lol

it is a gd game thou

[The Meerkat]

You would only ask that question if:-

a) You are new to N4G
b) You're a bitter PS3 owner

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say its probably (a)

[gaffyh]

Wait, WHAT? $200 million, and it isn't even that good??!?

People were saying KZ2's budget was ridiculous (~$60 mil), and it showed, the game looked amazing and played amazing (I don't suck at gaming), and the campaign was very good.

On MW2, the campaign is ok, but you can tell they spent too much time on multiplayer to make it the best multiplayer available, but still, it is A LOT like MW1.

[nycredude]

$200M with all ads! $40-$50M to make a game on an old ass engine? I call BS on this! Uncharted 2 only had a budget of $20M! Someone is double dipping!

Nevermind I just thought about it more and realized it's on several platform, but still even if it's the same budjet as UC2 on one platform that is too high for these crap results in graphics!

[darkmurder]

200 million and yet they still don't know how to make a good matchmaking system, quality developers there! Who knew that marketing is more important than an actual game being good!

[sikbeta]

lol if you really believe that, you are so naive

IW said Activision want to give them a HUGE budget and they said don't need it

MW2 is a game done with same Engine as MW, tweaked, made with xbox console in mind, so the PS3 port SUCKS!!! and My GOD the f*cking PC port is the worst ever

Maybe they spent that amount in champagne and wh*res celebrating the estimate HUGE profit from the sales

Really $100m from the Ads and what like 20m for the game itself, the engine was done, tweaked a litle bit, short SP campaign, they don't spent a HUGE amount of money on the PORTS, no way

[vhero]

Just proof that its bull***t they need this extra £5 on top of the game to make profit crap.

[Xgamerzus]

Very suspicious about this sum!!!Why cause it didn't need any publicity!!
Im thinking it cost about 40 mil,since it used the same old engine and it was rather a short game.But was full of effect that some one had to come up with!

BUt to produce and distribute the DVD's shouldn't cost that much that is bolognie!!

Marketing cost is BS as well i saw no Clear channel billboard adds anywhere and only a myspace add here and there no commercials!!!
This is a BS figure !!!!
Pure BS!!!!!
They made a ton off of what is recycled technology and a short game.
But it was full of amazing cinematic effects which gives it a good score in my book!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Great job BS'ng us again though!!!!

I didn't buy the game BTW I rented it!!!
no way im paying 65 for short game and throwing my life away on MP..No Way!!

[Kaneda]

What is KZ2 production budget?

[StanLee]

They're guessing but it's no where near that figure. If the game cost between 50 and 60 million to produce, marketing and distribution costs would not be 3 to 4 times the game's budget. Halo 3's roll out cost 60 million dollars and Modern Warfare 2's was no where near as lavish. This is a BS article.

[tplarkin7]

There's no source for the $200 mil number. It's totally bogus.

[death83x]

I thinkeven with marketing and everything it wont cost that much. But I think they are exaggerate just because to get away with more money after taxes and other things. Big company they dont have any real interest to say the correct amount of money they spend on their products. While letting people they spend alot will make a good picture for the company as if they really care about the qualitiy of the products they produce. So I will take these numbers with alot of reservations.

[cleanhealthy12]

No, you can't.

[Christopher]

If MW2 cost $40 to $50 million to develop, then they wasted a crap load of money on... heck if I know. It's a good game, but it's not a revamp or generational leap over the first and I just don't see justifying such an expenditure based on the result.

Brand new IPs from the last two years have cost half as much if not a lot less than that.

[baum]

So that's why these games sell so much. 75% advertising, 25% actual game. That's something Xbox fanboys should think about when they promote Halo 3's sales. lmao

That's also probably why Sony hardly advertises their games. It's a lot better for them to keep pumping good games and selling them slowly with long legs rather than trying to portray the image of huge sales on day 1 so that all the tards think "OMG IT SELLS SO MUCH IT MUST BE GOOD LETS JUMP ON TEH BANDWAGON".

Anyway, "Jump In" ;)

[alaa]

I was expecting something between 20-30 million max without the Ads.

[theEnemy]

ads itself costs about 100mil.

:D

[Sm0k3y_Bac0n]

40-50mil seems a bit high to me. Considering Killzone 2 cost 60 mil ( correct me if im wrong) which also included creating an engine which produced the best console graphics there is.

Then again KZ was only for one platform and i dont know how much it costs to port games from platforms.

[LastPlaceConsole]

WOW that's alot of money

[sbstncstllo]

that's waaay too much money, how much was the cost for the first MW game ?

[JonnyBigBoss]

You'd think they would have noticed the health in multi-player is too low...

[wicked]

don't get shot!

[borgome]

haha, total noob statement.

[MajestieBeast]

What about the jello on effect when you get shot its retared.

[OrganicMachine]

lets see, 40 - 50 million dollars budget and yet no dedicated server support and blah blah blah

add $200m for advertisement.. and succeeded...

they really are milking this sh!t

[psycho360]

Did they really need to advertise it? The MW2 360 bundles maybe had to do something with the cost i guess.

[PinkUni]

if it was the other way around they could have had a team that was 3 times as large

i feel like alot of it probably went into paying off actors. if only more of the money could have gone into networking and rpg elements

have a game thats completely seamless online gameplay,

[dredgewalker]

Wow that's really irritating. Spending more on ads than making the game better?!? I dont even see them spending over 20 million on the game since it uses the same engine and little improvement over the first one. At least Killzone 2 had a budget of 60 million and look how it turned out. This is not helping the gaming industry in the long run. Its like buying a new car only to find out that the everything else in the inside is the same as last years model and the only thing that changed was the body.

[JEDI WOLVERINE]

First law of business is taking the punters for what you can.........

Whats the point of them spending more on a new game engine and a longer campaign and more bug testing when they can release it like this and still make a fortune?

If they had improved the game then it would still be greatly recieved but their profit margin would have been down a tad ;)

It's definetely true - gaming is now all about mainstream 'big sellers' and how much money that can be made off of them.

I don't agree with this business model at all,i'd rather play a 'true niche classic' than anything watered down just to make money off the masses.......thats not to say that MW2 is a poor game though because it clearly isnt.

[Dazel]

Disc, boxes, packaging, printing, burning and shipping will account for most of the 150/160 million. So 40/50 million for MW2 seems right to me for a game that might not do new but does what it does so very well imo!

[madjedi]

150 million on marketing alone, and to think i made fun of halo 3's marketing budget, where was the money spent, there isn't any cod sodas or happy meal toys, i didn't see any super massive ad campaigns.

So mw2 cost 40-50 million(15 million sp/25-35 million mp), gears 1 10 million, killzone 2 60 million, a chunk of that was for the new engine it used, and both of those games set a new bar in the graphics and mw2 graphics aren't impressive in the slightest.

So infinity ward had almost any budget they could ask for and the game has an even shorter single player campaign, a new coop mission mode(anyone else think r2 gave them the idea) and the super fake turn on a dime, same popular mp with non existent recoil.

200 million and no word on a new engine, sounds like cod7 and mw3 will be an the same engine as well, any takers that iw will try to ride this generation out on the same engine just tweaking it occasionally. At least till the ps4/xbox720 arrive.

[antiver]

Modern Warfare 2 is just an expansion/content pack for Modern Warfare, just like World at War was. Expansions are cheap. That's all marketing budget.

[i3eyond the Circle]

MW2 is my GOTY.

I played on Vet so campaign was pretty long when your not running through but standing back picking of enemies before proceeding like real military.

The soundtrack rips and spec ops is cram packed with lots of co op goodies.

I'm leaving out the online competitive play just to point out that MW2 offers more content than alot of games this gen...even ones exclusive to a disc format that supposedly has more space.

[kingme71]

Activision knew they had a financial winner which is why they spent so much on marketing. I saw ads everywhere and in high profile (read expensive) spots like MNF. $40-50 million is probably low end anymore on a high profile game. Take just the employees. Most game devs have upwards of 100 and sometimes more people involved with a game. Let's say each employee costs them on average $50,000/year which includes their salary, health benefits, 401k matching, soc security. The game took 2 years to develop so if we say IW had 100 people working on this game, that's $12,000,000 alone in employee cost. Then you have expenses to run your business (lights, real estate, computers, late night pizza). MoCap sessions and paid acting talent as well as voice over work.

[akumous]

That's not possible because GT5 has been in development for years and it cost 60 million at least so how does MW2 cost 200 million to make..that isn't possible...that's even more than Halo 3 and Halo3 had a huge marketing campaign...

[wicked]

It depends on how many people they put into the project, GT5 has only a small team working on it.

[Redempteur]

even with that in mind , such difference shouldn't be that huge ..considering the amounts of thing that disapeared between mw1 and mw2

[peeps]

massive budget tbh but i guess they knew it would sell like hot cakes. the thing is though i don't understand how they actually managed to spend $40-50 mil to produce it when (not knocking it here) it's not exactly the biggest advancement over cod4.

i mean they didn't even have to spend money and time developing another engine. i thought kz2's production cost was ridiculous but they spent roughly the same ammout to develop their first game for the ps3 along with a new engine.

[Wh15ky]

Bribing reviewers can't be cheap.

[xtheblackparade]

Okay, I like this game but HOW IN THE HELL??? 200 million dollar? HOW do they reach such an astronomical number with such a normal game?

[immortal84]

I wonder how much money he got alone? Add to this voice overs cost and development cost and etc.

[SportsFan]

IF ANYONE ON HERE BELIEVES THIS BS, THEN YOU ARE WORSE THAN ANY FANBOY!

I mean do disrespect to anyone's intelligence, but the is highly unlikley that this (Or any game) cost 40-50 million, let alone $200 mil. (Maybe $30 million for everything, instead of $200 million..I would kind of agree with...but even that's a streach!) Just like Halo 3 & the 1st MW game, this cost the MAX of $9-15 million. (That includes materials, employees, food, and lodging.) 1st of all, MOST events PAY to have the biggest and best hyped games at their convention, so the $200 million budget is just a lie! Yea, I don't work in this field exclusively, but I have a MBA degree from a Big Ten University. (And Bachelors of Sciences)

Don't you people think it's odd to release the cost for a game, AFTER you see profits come out? This is called "Mis-direction"...a stunt used to deflect customers from the profits gained versus resources used. If IW/Activision/MS let it be known that MP DLC (For most games like these) are already completed and later used to make extra cash, people would also get mad. My point it this: IW is telling the cost of this game, just to make people think that they barley made even or have made slightly marginal gains....WHICH IS JUST AS LAUGHABLE AS GAMESTOP NOT BEING AS BAD A CONGLOMERATE AS WALLMART. (Power to the people... SURE!) I like to talk about games, but this type of stuff should just be taboo....as with the whole RROD/360 ratio argument.

This article is as insulting to my intelligence (AND HOPEFULLY, YOURS) as the punishment system for celebrities versus common people. NO GAME COST THAT MUCH TO MAKE...THEY DON'T EVEN MAKE GAME SYSTEMS IN THE US!!! (Wounder why?) You people do know that Bill Gates was paying for extensions on work visia's, to get cheaper, NON-American workers into the US? (Look it up at your local library!) It's no shocker to why the Xbox 360's are so F.U.B.A.R.! (All that XBL and lazy DVD movie style "deleted scenes" type of DLC....like the re-named Halo 1 and 2 MP PORTS, that developers claims cost them so much money to make. And MS/Bungie still had the balls to charge for them.) Anyway...back to my point, don't believe the hype!

After what these big banks and Wall Street did, you would be a fool to believe it. Although I love my PS3, it's not so insane to believe that Sony embellished their cost of the PS3, but at least it's a quality systems, with TONS of outstanding capabilities in it! Of course it was crap....the PS3 went from $499/$599 all the way down to $299!!! IN JSUT UNDER 3 COMPLETE YEARS. (LOL) Yet, they say they are losing damn near double for each systems sold?? NOT A CHANCE PEOPLE! although I have a MBA, you don't need that to figure this stuff out. The same logic/stratagie that rich people play are EXACTLY the same as drug dealers and criminals. (EX. movie/game/music pirates, people who buy extra games systems...to sell at a higher price online, selling used cars..without disclosing damage, and gamblers/bookies.) We all know how much it cost to "burn" games...well, that is the SAME cost to making all of these $59-$129 games! Air Jordans cost "sweat shop workers" less than $4 bucks to make....but they got less than $200 bucks a week for pay. NOW, if just like the Air Jordans, 360's were made here in the USA, then maybe it would cost IW/Activision/MS close to $100 million, BUT THAT IS THE ONLY WAY!!!!! ($200 mil on MW2, but these jerks could not include a dedicated server on the PC version this time around!!? Of course that was so IW can slap together lazy Spec Op DLC to charge people for. (LOL) Think About it!) PC gamers got screwed out of the "usually standard" oppertunity to set up game matches how they like. That is the main point for dedicated serveres for PC gamers. The greedy IW jerks knew that the best way to get more cheeder, is to strip these benifits away from ALL versions of the game! I don't like pirates, but after this stunt by Activision/MS....I UNDERSTAND. (LOL)

[Darkspade]

And you still think Piracy is a Problem, If you make a Good Game it will Sale know matter what... If you make a Crap Game just to make a buck then yes Piracy will hurt you

[SportsFan]

LEFT 4 DEAD WAS A PC PORT, and look how much money it made. It cost Valve nothing to make a 3 hour campaign, with basic MP options. Honestly, more money was spent on promotion, then the actual game itself. Futhermore, most games sell for profit. Haze and Lair were both flops, but still sold close to 1 million world wide...at $59.99 a pop! The people who pirated these games LOST MONEY, TIME, AND EFFORT. The pirates should have sued the developers. (LOL)

BTW: Halo 3 grossed over $850 million....and guess what, they still lost over $100 million (prob. more!) to pirates. I don't care how much money you have...NO ONE WILL LOOK AT THE $850 MADE AND BE HAPPY WITH THE LOSSES. Again, to back up the cost/profit ration argument....IW/Activision/MS worked on making theri money lost from pirates. Hears how: No dedicated Servers for PC owner GARENTEES that although people can "burn games" you can't burn Spec Op's and MP DLC...which is the mistake that Bungie made with Halo 3. EVERYONE will have to pay for it, so the money lost from pirates is made up this way. THINK ABOUT IT!! It doesn't matter to me, as I have NEVER (And never will)pay for DLC...which as Halo has shown...is nothing more than "deleted secens" from the game. Look at Halo 1 and 2, then look at the Maps in Halo 3 and ODST. These game companies LOVE people like you....but I'm a real gamer, not a sucker.

[J BO]

that is so much bad news for ps3 fans boy I think they are in heart attack right now LOL, by the way good job IW 200 millions for the game of the year:)

[rukia_chan]

killzone 2 better engine phisic and graphic period cost around 21 million...

mw2 200 millions= around 3 hours gameplay, generic graphics, horrible online.

mw2 is huge fail period IMO.

http://digg.com/gaming_news...

[Trebius]

Why is it bad news for PS3 owners? lol...looks like you're trying to troll where there's no trolling to be done...

You just look stupid right now.

Keep kissing IWs ass, i'm sure they'll send you something in appreciation for your support.

Like Free DLC (yea right)

[CptBach]

explain?

[clarkdef]

GTA4 did 500mil in the same time period! Thats WOW considering the PC version wasn't released until later, and the PC version had no where near the hate that MW2 did. It most likely would have the record do you think?

[gamingisnotacrime]

are they trying to justify a fee for MP online? something is going on here, this game does not need huge advertisement, millions new exactly what they wanted and that was MW2. I dont trust Activision one bit

[OpiZA]

My bro works inadvertising and I can completely believe the 150 mil for it. For a global advertising campaign... you have no idea how much airtime costs, let alone everything and everyone else wanting a piece of the pie

[Timactionfigures]

What a tremendous waste! Mostly by consumers. But to each their own I guess.

I gave my money to Demon's Souls. It is an infinitely better game IMO, and surely cost much less to produce. I don't regret my decision.

[artsaber]

Isn't Research and Development funds/cost a separate transaction from Marketing? The Marketing cost is irrelevant to what the GAME ITSELF actually cost (which is what I wanna know). But I have to admit, those Monster MW2 poster promotions in Walmart look good, but it ain't $200 Million or even $100 million dollars good. I guess this includes paying 360, PC, and PS3 devs with marketing costs for all three rolled into one total.

[Nihilism]

Games like fallout 3, which lasted for well over 100 hours if you did everything, only cost $20 million to make....it also won game of the year. Lesson here kiddies: big budget does not = quality

[gameraxis]

i keep hearing some of you rabid followers saying that the ps3 is a crappy port, trust me when i say this, there were problems in the beginning but the ps3 version of this game is EXACTLY the same as the 360, sorry to burst your bubbles guys (no pun intended) but find some other way to justify paying for your online... stop doing microsofts job for them.

I've been playing since i bought it day one, every night, and its works great!...again, I'm not saying one version is superior to the other, you should try the same

[boss_killa]

period.

there's no way in hell the game cost 200 million in total. just look at the results. the game looks a little better than MW1 from 2 years ago. you'd think it would look super amazing if that amount of money was spent.

i just finished the game last night and its safe to say they did not spend anywhere near that amount of money.

just my guess but MW2 probably cost around 5 to 15 million to make. activision probably spent around the same amount on advertising. in total it probably cost Acti around 30-40 million to roll out MW2.

[ZBlacktt]

Wow, so many bought into the hype, lol. Now Craigslist is flooded with them. After people finished the SP in under 5 hours, lol... I'll be on the BFBC2 tonight.

[Myzer]

Wow, I didn't realize pressing Ctrl-C then Ctrl-V was so expensive.

[Nihilism]

dude, IW isn't even smart enough for that, they do it manually ( going through the menus)

[bigrudowsky]

didnt they say the budget was 200 mil i doubt they spent that much

[OhMyGandhi]

...and this game wasn't that good.