AAA Game Development Costs Are Now $300 Million or More, Says Insider

A video game industry insider has revealed that AAA game development costs have reached $300 million and could exceed that amount.

Game development costs are increasing steadily, and many studios have had to resort to restructuring to remain viable amid this surge. Now, the latest numbers reveal that the average development cost has reached what GTA 5 cost when it was released, and those numbers were record-breaking then.

AAA Game Development Costs Are Skyrocketing

A new post on Bluesky by industry insider Jason Schreier reveals how much it costs to develop a AAA game nowadays. Schreier states it would be easier if studios posted their exact budgets; however, the numbers he has heard floating around are “$300 million or more — sometimes much more!”

Schrier clarified that these are the costs for studios based in the United States or Canada; games that cost less to develop were probably made “probably somewhere else”. He also explained that the numbers shared are based on “salaries + overhead and have nothing to do with executive compensation (which is mostly stock).”

In a report earlier this year, the insider also explained the various reasons for rising costs, with factors like labor, time to develop, mismanagement, the need for better graphics, and more coming into play.

In other news, an analyst has predicted that CD Projekt Red could spend close to $800 million on the development and marketing of The Witcher 4, a figure that matches the numbers shared recently. Additionally, a recent claim suggested that ARC Raiders cost around $75 million to make.

What are your thoughts on AAA game development costs hitting $300 million and sometimes surpassing it? Leave your thoughts down in the comments, and join the official Insider Gaming Discord server.

For more information from Insider Gaming, read about Jason Bundell commenting on PlayStation’s closure of Dark Outlaw Games. Don’t forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter.