We all know the video game industry is bigger than the music and movie industry put together. In a single year, games can make more than double what movies and music can do combined. It might be something hard to believe or even grasp by some, but the numbers don’t lie.
ing logic, if something makes a lot of money, it should also cost a lot of money to make. Video games are no exception. Even a couple of decades ago, when the industry wasn’t as big as it is today, some video game budgets were just mind-blowing.
10 2000 — Final Fantasy 9
$40 Million
Just a heads-up, expect to see a lot of Final Fantasy games on this list. Maybe because of the overwhelming success of 1997’s Final Fantasy 7, or because of some external reason, but Square has a way of giving its Final Fantasy games a larger-than-life budget.
The first one we see is Final Fantasy 9 for the PS1 with a budget of $40 million, and sold around 5.5 million copies. To Square’s fortune, the game was a success, critically and commercially. Imagine spending $40 million only for your game to flop.
9 2001 — Final Fantasy 10
$40 Million
via Square Enix
Final Fantasy is just getting started, don’t you worry. Final Fantasy 10 was the most expensive game of 2001 with Square spending another $40 million. It’s incredible to think that just a couple of years earlier, Final Fantasy games didn’t even release in the West.
At the time, the game sold around 6.6 million copies according to Square, which made it, once again, a commercial success. Fans and critics also praised the game, so Square’s domination over the new century remained undefeated. You have to give some props to them.
8 2002 — Final Fantasy 11
$26 Million
We are almost done with Final Fantasy. ing the saga’s release order, now we have Final Fantasy 11 in 2002, but this time, with a much smaller budget: 26.3 million US dollars. It seems Square finally had to make some cuts.
The difference now is that FF11 is an MMORPG, an ongoing online adventure, that lasts years. It actually became the most successful entry until Final Fantasy 14 came out, having amassed a total revenue of over $1 billion over the years, and a peak of 500 thousand concurrent players.
7 2003 — Enter The Matrix
$30 Million
Finally, a break, but don’t worry, Final Fantasy will return. Enter The Matrix is a game you probably wouldn’t expect to see on this list. It’s not a ground-breaking game by any means, nor does it have the highest scores.
Things change when you realize it features over an hour of new and exclusive footage, filmed on 35mm, directed by the Wachowskis and starring the original cast of the movies. The story is canon, and part of the Matrix universe. The game sold around five million copies, making it another commercial success.
6 2004 — Halo 2
$120 Million
Halo 2’s release was one of those massive events that you simply just had to be there. People camped outside of game stores, the marketing campaign was out of this world, featuring an ARG, making people solve real-life puzzles. Everything was a huge landmark event.
With $40 million in development and another $80 million in marketing alone, it’s no surprise Halo 2 topped the lists in 2004. Obviously, the game was a huge success, and it will go down in history as one of the best FPSs of all time.
5 2005 — Yakuza
$21 Million
The first installment of the Yakuza series, and looking back, they’ve come a long way. Yakuza was released in 2005 for the PlayStation 2, and cost $21 million. Given that it spawned an entire series of games that is still ongoing, it’s safe to say it was a success.
Thanks to the success of this one game, the series continued with eight other mainline games, and several other spin-offs. It’s funny to think that a modern Yakuza game is called ‘Infinite Wealth’. Maybe Sega found the key to achieving it.
4 2006 — Final Fantasy 12
$53 Million
Guess who’s back? For the last time on this list, we have a FF title with Final Fantasy 12, with a whopping budget of $53 million. To give credit where credit is due, the Final Fantasy series is simply a money-making machine. No matter how much they cost, they are always hits.
FF12 made lot of changes to the classic core gameplay of Final Fantasy. Notably, Square Enix changed random encounters so that the monsters were always visible in the environment, and it included the re-introduction of the classic job system.
3 2007 — Halo 3
$60 Million
Bungie comes in once again and s up the success of Halo 2, with probably the Xbox 360’s most important and defining game, Halo 3. It did cost $60 million to make, but it made $170 million back in the first 24 hours alone.
Yes, it was the biggest entertainment release ever at the time, reaching sales of up to $300 million in just the first week. In terms of copies, 3.3 million were sold in the first two weeks. Once again, it was a landmark event in gaming history.
2 2008 — Grand Theft Auto 4
$100 Million
The first game on this list to reach the $100 million mark on budget alone (not counting marketing) is Rockstar’s flagship, Grand Theft Auto 4, from 2008. The budget grew so high mainly because of the detail given to the game’s map, based on New York City.
The team conducted a lot of field research in the actual city, taking over 100,000 photographs of New York in order to build this game’s version of Liberty City. The game sold over six million copies in its first week, making around $500 million in the first week.
1 2009 — Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
$200 Million
The 2000s ended with a classic game of the FPS era, Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. At the time, most people would buy an Xbox 360 and play FIFA, Halo, and Modern Warfare 2. It was just that big of a game, and with a whopping $200 million, combined between budget and marketing, it better have been.
The game surpassed every record set by GTA 4 the previous year, selling 4.7 million copies on day one, translating to $310 million in 24 hours. After a couple of months, the game’s sales amounted to around $1 billion, and reached a peak of 22.8 million copies sold.
