What’s behind ballooning video game budgets?

Why does it cost some companies hundreds of millions of dollars to develop a popular video game?

A few weeks ago, the New York Times laid the blame Endless quest to deliver more photo-realistic graphics– and it suggested that the industry was starting to see diminishing returns, leading to layoffs and studio closings.

But Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier This analysis is logical “A little bit off the mark.” He doesn’t deny that budgets have increased dramatically ($20 million for Naughty Dog’s “Uncharted 2” in 2009 vs. $220 million for their “Last of Us Part II” in 2020) or that graphics play a role, but he says it’s really It boils down to the need for larger teams for longer periods of time — due to improved graphics, yes, but also increased game scope.

Also, he writes that “everyone” who has spent at least a few years in the industry has “their own horror stories” about management decisions, such as “the one that got scrapped because the CEO’s teenage kid didn’t like it” or the hundreds of teams of people “in pre-production. Flaking up as they try to define what a game’s ‘core loop’ actually looks like.”

So if game companies are really worried about ballooning budgets, Schreier says they should focus their “introspection” on the mismanagement that can be wasting everyone’s work and time.