The last GTA title took the record for the most expensive video game in history and it’s not the least bit surprising that its sequel would break that record – but I didn’t expect it to destroy it this badly.
According to reports from Scottish website, Scotsman.com, the Edinburgh based game has a marketing and development budget of £170 million.
That’s $266 million in American and an eye watering R2 676 000 000 budget for making a video game that your local church leader is going to scoff at and your mother most probably looks down her nose at. The previous record was $100 million for GTA 4 and then $85 for Skyrim.
Wccftech has gone even further and compared the budget to the blockbuster films that Hollywood are making in this fancy graph.
Not only is GTA V the second most expensive entertainment budget ever but even more surprisingly someone budgeted $250 million for Tangled… seriously people?
Anyway normally when you smash records with your budget investors and shareholders get nervous, especially in this high risk industry. But GTA is such a guaranteed blockbuster that Take-Two’s share price has actually doubled in the last year with GTA V sales expecting to break 24 million and rake in over a billion dollars.
It’s worth noting that this includes development and marketing – and if you’ve seen some of the GTA V marketing, you’d know that it’s likely costing Rockstar a fortune. Remember, Modern Warfare 2 had a similar budget back in 2009 – so it’s really not that ludicrous when you add it all up. Ok, it’s still a bit ludicrous. Videogames…big business.
Source: http://www.lazygamer.net/xbox-360/look-at-the-size-of-the-gta-v-budget/