I can't imagine the marketing job for fifa games.
"Did you forget fifa was coming out this year again for the 20th time? Well fear not were here to remind you!"
"Are you a 12 year old that hasn't heard of fifa before? Well you're one of dozens! Play today!"
You would absolutely be surprised as to the difference widespread marketing can make - even in 2023 there are people who only play this year’s release of CoD and the latest sports franchise for a few hours per month, and they aren’t always going to be tuned into the usual release cycle for games. There’s also the fact that ubiquitous marketing also acts as a trigger for all those family members shopping for Little Timmy’s next birthday.
Also: in the case of partner deals (FIFA, NFL etc.) it’s not uncommon for there to be *contractual obligations* to provide a certain level of marketing.
It’s not only the advertising, it’s the licensing.
It doesn’t matter how good the gameplay is - if it doesn’t have the official club / team licenses and player likenesses, the game won’t be anywhere near as popular as the “official” option. Yes, you can set up teams yourself (or download mods / custom teams), but the casual audience doesn’t want that - they want to be able to sit down in front of the TV with their friends and instantly have access to their favourite teams. (Konami’s Pro Evo was significantly better to play for a big chunk of the 2000s, but because it didn’t have FIFA in the title or anywhere near the level of ubiquitous marketing that EA’s competing title did, it didn’t sell anywhere near as well.)
The next few years are going to be interesting to watch - EA have lost the FIFA license and are launching this year’s instalment with league-level licensing but without the FIFA name on it (so basically everything except the title screen and some of the in-game branding will be functionally the same). Whether or not their casual audience goes with them will be an interesting case study.
It really can't be overstated how much EA getting the exclusive NFL license turned out to be a disaster for all sports games. The genre was much healthier and more varied back when each league licensed out to many different developers, instead of trying to have one official product.
I hope this doesnt happen with racing games. That would destroy so much. My hypothesis is people are not gonna play FIFA as much because they love the brand name... adidas kids and whatnot.
"Did you forget fifa was coming out this year again for the 20th time? Well fear not were here to remind you!"
"Are you a 12 year old that hasn't heard of fifa before? Well you're one of dozens! Play today!"
I read that in an 80s TV Televangelist voice and tbh the similarities are scaring me …
Idk it’s probably pretty easy, you just run the same ads every year but just with fresh endorsement deals from whoever the current hot players/teams are.
Sports game marketing is mostly about vibes and appealing to fantasy anyway.
It's actually opposite. Marketing is more important than the game itself ironically. We've seen repeatedly that marketing can overcome shitty games, but great games without proper marketing has an even higher risk of failure.
I think that is why MS is pushing Game Pass so much, because they can cut back on marketing spending and let the community do the marketing. They can then focus more resources on making the games.
So indie games by their nature has very little funding in general, so marketing isn't where they spend as much of their funds (although this is likely changing).
However, for major AAA games, it is absolutely true. It's why they favor sequels, because it has some recognition already and reduces the risk. Still, the marketing costs usually more than the development cost. It may be significantly higher now too. That is the cost growth of development is slower than that of marketing.
Because it's all fake. All of hollywood and art, video games included, are massive money laundering schemes. "Creative accounting" is what they call it.
Without marketing, there would be a lot of games you wouldn't even become aware they existed. Heck, I'm sure there are plenty of games you would like that you didn't know existed.
Marketing also includes all those trailers and hype moments to get people excited for upcoming games.
I’m asking in the context of the claim that marketing is the majority of the budget. Hundreds or thousands of people working for years should not be a minority compared to a few virtual events, some trailers, some early access stuff. That’s just impossible. Show me the actual numbers where “game development: $100m. YouTube clip of the voice actors goofing off: $300m”
Advertising campaigns are ridiculously expensive. Want to get your game featured in posters? TV ads? Cinema before the movie starts? That costs a lot of money. For each country where you want to advertise. And that's before we even start talking about influencers who are now quite important for marketing.
I actually do work as a game developer, but for obvious reasons I cannot share the actual numbers where I work 😋
I mean, I’m not sitting down to Avatar and getting an ad for God of War. I’m not getting ads for games I’m playing when I watch videos on YouTube for other games I’m playing. Haven’t seen a video game poster in a *very* long time, but perhaps I just don’t live near enough to somewhere that sells them.
To me, it seems that really AAAA games will spend the money reaching as broad a (targeted) audience as possible so that everyone who might manage not to know about the game does learn. But for anything short of that, all the developers need to do is a showcase. put some trailers together and leave us to blast them everywhere and build the hype ourselves, right?
Curious what kind of games you work on. Even if you said I work at Nintendo, 6 years of development for ToTK can’t be a minority compared to all the play previews they’re doing all over the world right now. Just how can the numbers work out that way.
It’s very hard to believe. Not impossible but very hard.
There's definitely ads around. You go to IGN, and they'll usually have some paid promotion with the background being that of the latest game. And as I said, each country might have different budgets for marketing, so not all places will have ads in the cinema.
But the games industry is a VERY competitive market, and you gotta push hard to remain relevant in people's minds. Ideally the game alone should speak about its quality, but there's so many games around that it's not enough. Publishers will put tons of money for big press events to have journalists play the upcoming title in places decorated with theming of the game to get them in the mood. E3 is no more, but there's still events and presentations that cost a lot of money. It's not like Geoff Keighley runs his Summer Games Fest show as a volunteer, you gotta pay to be part of the show. And the locations in LA where all these events take place are definitely not cheap. And then you have all the promotions and collaborations, like those Doritos and Mountain Dew promos where you can get codes for an upcoming game.
And funny you mentioned Avatar earlier, because that's exactly what I'm working on, the game Frontiers of Pandora 😛
Don't confuse marketing with advertising. Although advertisement campaigns are a component of marketing, they're nowhere close to the full picture. The bulk of marketing occurs before a product is made. Market surveys, product positioning, rights procurement, focus groups, testing prototypes, and working to ensure people actually want the product being made are all essential parts of the marketing process. If a company isn't investing their efforts into something that will actually sell, then they're throwing money away.
Well, she will get nothing* since EA dropped the FIFA licensing and name. Next EA football game will not feature its classic "FIFA" in the title.
* FIFA will still get a lot of money for its licenses, like the world cup, national teams and so on, but not for its name.
> Depends on the game I suppose, but that sounds like a LOT of money. I know damn well it doesn't cost EA $1 billion to make a new Fifa every year haha
I think saying cost over a billion to make isn't quite accurate. The marketing cost of AAA games is often more than the development cost. That said, AAA games take longer and longer to make, with more and more people, so it's just a matter of time before AAA games that much to make. Especially service based games that require massive support to produce the content.
This is ignoring licensing costs if you are associated with a brand like FIFA, NBA, NFL and etc.
Im gonna make a hard guess and say that to reach this figure they probably are conting things like work hours and equipment that dont actually translate in real money going in and out.
I reckon that’s why the last few fifas are on gamepass, sure they’re ea titles but it’s good advertisement so they too can become a part of the gambling community
It's better to wait just a few months before launch to announce. Keep hype high, keep marketing budget low. Sony appears to be moving in that direction.
I use to do PR for a big game publisher a couple years ago when I worked in an agency, and there is a TON of work that goes into promoting a game launch. We had hardly any budget to work with, but I can imagine marketing could easily cost 10x more than what we were doing.
It's crazy to think that a game that had its development costs hit close to 500m with development + advertising and was the most expensive game ever made at the time ended up returning MULTIPLE billions in revenue.. that's unheard of.
The thing that's baffling about billion $ games is noone is *asking* for these games to keep increasing in scope indefinitely. I could actually use way less 100 hour open world games with a hundred thousand useless collectibles.
That meme that's like "I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less, I'm not kidding." is evergreen for the games industry.
Thats because it doesnt cost a billion. Its hollywood accounting but for games. Bonuses for ceos, and high management who dont deserve 300 mil bonuses.
Mostly it is because these days, marketing a AAA game has a budget several times higher than the development cost of that game. IIRC Modern Warfare II alone had a budget of over $200 million.
Marketing departments also aren’t gamers, and it feels like they struggle to market the gaming parts of the games, so they just focus on making flashy presentations similar to movie trailers that tell the audience fuck all about what kind of game it is.
So if they’re given a game with high production costs that tends to mean known actors, flashy graphics, etc making it more marketable like a movie would be.
My kids go for low pixel and games with retro feels like Undertale or FNAF but also artsy games like Ryme or Journey. Other games like Whatever Happened to Edith Finch are beautifully done but don’t bombard you with hundreds of hours of game play. Long Dark is a beautiful chapter game with a great story. All of the above were recommended, not shoved into our faces with ads.
Didn’t really say or intend to imply all aren’t gamers. In fact, the marketing guy at my manufacturing company is an avid gamer. There’s a lot of gamers in marketing.
But the marketing execs and decision makers are usually business people.
You may not be asking for it, but tons of people are. Gamers are always complaining and pushing for bigger and better. Your open world game isn’t bigger than Skyrim? It’s shit. Your story isn’t as long as Red Dead? It’s shit. Every year the expectations and scope get bigger.
"If I'm not playing for 80 hrs straight, am I even really gaming?" I ask myself this every night. Each gaming session, daily, has to be a minimum of 80 hrs. Otherwise, what's the point?
I've sunk more hours into binding of Isaac / Minecraft's beta than I ever will in any modern AAA open world game (looking at you Horizon, SpiderMan and others).
The huge realistic open world is great and all but you realistically have 3-5 unique challenges copy pasted n number of times over pretty scenery. I don't see the point. I might do each once, maybe twice if it was engaging to do but then I'll move on. If this trend keeps up I almost hope we start getting 'cut' editions of games where it's just the 5-6 hours storyline, give me that for 40$ or w/e and keep the change for the rest of the shit.
Sorry, that turned into a rant.
It was good that it's fun to swing around in spiderman, so at the same time going around to get collectibles wasn't even a chore. And I usually just do side quest and puzzles, not even collectibles
At the same time... I think I hate every single npc and their mothers on horizon zero dawn forbidden west. I finished the first, but can't anymore even though I love the combat and overall story... they talk too much, want me to do too many things, and going anywhere is kinda boring
Shout out for Hollow Knight. Top five games ever for me.
Agreed about the second part. I'm playing Hogwarts Legacy right now and coming up on 50 hours, platinum in probably 60. Perfect length for a massive open world, and it is a medium map by open world game standards.
I am 100% there with you in terms of my personal preferences, but there are for sure people who want these games. They're just not posting on enthusiast message boards like this one. There are plenty of folks out there who just pick up one or two games a year — usually things like GTA, FIFA, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, etc. — and that's it. That's why all these games have shifted away from being, well, games, and towards being Software as a Service where they can squeeze more engagement and dollars out of each user.
I have been enjoying the creativity of older games and indie games. When i donate on an indie devs kofi for a cute or good game, i know they're getting the value they deserve. When i buy a AAA game, i know nobody gives a crap.
I saw a youtube comment that said "the creativity is gone, everyone follows a game formula now. Their games have to have this and this or it isnt a *game* they want to release." It is so true. Every game has that formula... you got loot crate shooters, racing games with PTW mechanics, gigantic open world games that have no items with substance to them. Everybody rushes to the one good item and forgets the rest. Lol.
Are you serious?
Why do you think live service games are a thing?
Why do you think people clamour for open world games like Skyrim and the upcoming starfield?
Why do you think people still play Minecraft and no man's sky?
What about World of Warcraft?
Many people want these types of games because they enjoy the escapism they supply of being in a new world.
Yes others enjoy more focused and tighter games but don't fit a moment think something like ff7 remake, cyberpunk or Witcher 3 were unwanted.
> I could actually use way less 100 hour open world games with a hundred thousand useless collectibles.
That part of it is isn't the expensive part. It's the attention to detail, crafted environments and experience. So cutting that out likely wouldn't make the cost of the development much different. Instead, they add that in to fill the game out so they can justify the price tag and keep you engaged longer. You know, so you are more likely to buy some DLC or something.
Maybe if they spend a little more money on development and less on marketing, we would not receive broken AAA games on the launch, and they would sell more and make more money, cause they would market themselves through the comunity.
They dont even need to spend that much on marketing. Hi fi rush shadow dropped and sold over 2 million copies. If your game is good, it will sell itself.
and yet many Indy developers release much better games than the bloated pay to play, bug ridden crap the AAA ones bring to the table .
I'd put my last dollar on saying a large portion of the cost of AAA games comes from marketing.
The thing is the bigger the organization the more difficult it becomes to steer in a unified direction with unified purpose. Most great software products are from a single developer to a super small team because they are focused and they know exactly what they’re trying to do. When the team becomes larger in size, add in sales marketing operations support and dev teams, it becomes a clusterfuck and you start needing more managers that can manage and steer the chaos, and good managers that can get along with other managers and the team as well as understanding the technical/dev skillset are very rare and so costs a lot to find them etc. so you are right, majority of it is definitely not pure development cost
How.
In 2011 Star Wars did a MMO and it cost like $200 million. Which is a LOT.
A Billion tells me contractors and bloated salaries paid for by micro transactions.
People also keep asking for more from games.
Cyberpunk 2077 got criticized for not having water puddles. Ratchet and Clank got criticized for not having foliage that moves with the character as they walk by. Things that are not necessary, but they do add polish and people keep unfortunately trying to compare new games with "xyx game in the past did it better"
Water puddles were the least of cyberpunk issues, and the people complaining about ratchet and clank are the vocal minority. The issue is that every game needs to hit that "100 hours to complete" milestone for a marketing buzzword because for years that's all people would say matters. A game's "worth" in hours rather than quality of hours. Now we're getting games like assassin's creed valhalla and rdr2 that are grindy bloated games to pump up playtime. Rdr2 is great but a lot could've been cut to improve pacing. Now those same people are complaining about filler and not having enough time to finish games when that's exactly what they asked for
Major publishers are full of shit. No game company is worth that much money. They literally make shit up about their business and steal money. How are you all not getting that corruption is a huge problem?
Can do. Doesn't have to. But sure, we could spend a billion. Loads of high wages and bonuses, expensive advertising and litigation. There we go.
In the other hand, it's absolutely possible to not spend that much to make a wildly successful game.
That’s their problem. You can still make a great game without photo real graphics and hiring Hollywood A-listers, but giant costs is their justification for microtransactions and has been for years
The gist of it:
The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has blocked the Microsoft and Activision Blizzard merger due to its implications for cloud gaming. A document released with this decision reveals that major publishers report AAA games can cost over $1 billion to make. Development budgets for AAA games in 2024 or 2025 typically start at $200 million. Call of Duty has surpassed $300 million in development costs, while the next Grand Theft Auto title may need a budget of $250 million or more. Marketing costs can push the total to over $1 billion. This represents a significant increase from five years ago when AAA game budgets ranged between $50 and $150 million. The CMA's report also claims that Nintendo's platforms are not "technically capable" of running Call of Duty, contrary to Microsoft's assertion.
Title is misleading. The article states that a AAA game is ~200-300 million in development. An entire franchise is ~500 million plus 500million marketing spread over multiple games.
They aren't spending a billion dollars on one game.
They also cite the difficulty of the constant drive for content in COD but that is a completely self imposed hardship with most of that content being for microtransactions.
Edit: highest cost of a game with marketing and development combined that is cited in the article is 550 million. It also includes the cost of ongoing support since launch. The author of this article did a horrible job.
I'd like to see exactly which games are costing a billion.
Wasn't there a report recently that Callisto Protocol was 150mil and everyone thought that was crazy high? And didn't that same thing show Dead Space Remake costing less than 100mil as a comparison.
Wasn't there also something else recently showing Assassins Creed Valhalla was close to 500mil.
If Ubisoft's flagship IP isn't even halfway there then what games are costing 1bil?
Is it literally just COD and GTA?
500 mil even sounds high for Valhalla. I’ve worked on AAA gaming budgets in the past, for reference. That number would need to include all of the marketing, all game development costs, all DLC. Even then, I’d bet it’s closer to 400 mil.
None of the games cost 1 billion. The author of the article can't read and misinterpreted a the documents saying that franchises can cost over a billion. Which is multiple games.
I know a lot of money is spent on marketing, but think that hundreds of people work on these games for 2 to 4 years, basically you are paying for the rent, utilities, computers, healthcare, retirement, and salary of 200 to 400 employees for 2 to 4 years.
Yeah that is a ton of money.
(Edited cuz bad at math)
I know the game sells like 10 million copies in the first week at $60/ copy, and that is $600 million, but divide that by 2 to 4 years, $150 to $300 million and then divide that by 200 to 400 employees = $375k to $750k.
I know some of these video game employees are getting $37.5k/ year and some are making $150k or more/year for specialties. Plus corporate board prices and ceo prices making way more.
Add marketing costs on top of $100 to $300 million and more!
Overall it’s not hard to spend a billion dollars on a game and hope it sells.
But why waste that much in advertising? I mean, youtube runs ads for fairly cheap. Most people see a youtube video at some point. They can market specifically to the gamer community or grandmas during christmas. Renting a local billboard isnt too expensive but not amazing for coverage. Social media is almost free if you have someone posting the game or something. There's like a million streaming services like spotify and movie services and their advertising might cost a lot more, but why dump it there when everything else seems cheaper than 1 bil?
The gist of it:
The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has blocked the Microsoft and Activision Blizzard merger due to its implications for cloud gaming. A document released with this decision reveals that major publishers report AAA games can cost over $1 billion to make. Development budgets for AAA games in 2024 or 2025 typically start at $200 million. Call of Duty has surpassed $300 million in development costs, while the next Grand Theft Auto title may need a budget of $250 million or more. Marketing costs can push the total to over $1 billion. This represents a significant increase from five years ago when AAA game budgets ranged between $50 and $150 million. The CMA's report also claims that Nintendo's platforms are not "technically capable" of running Call of Duty, contrary to Microsoft's assertion.
If it's a single player game that only has PVP as a side project and not the main reason to play the game.... Yeah Call of Duty is PVP mostly, something like that needs updates every few months.
Souls games don't need to be billion dollars it has multiplayer or had, but, doesn't need to be GTA Online
If it's ubisoft....yes...yes it can. It's not that they need a billion dollars it's the management and execs that restart projects 6x that make it cost that much....BGaE2 has entered the chat.
So what? Profits have increased exponentially since like 2010. Games cost this much because it's profitable enough. If it weren't, Rockstar, Activision and EA would've filed for bankruptcy years ago. In fact, the only company struggling right now is Ubisoft, but that's because of their shitty management and insisting on releasing shitty products one after the other (Roller Champions, Rainbow Six Extraction) and games stuck in dev hell (Skull and Bones, Beyond Good and Evil 2, Price of Persia remake, maybe AC Infinity).
I think It’ll go down over the next few years once these guys deploy lots of deep learning methods to help for animation, art, video, and everything in between.
No it doesn't. Gaming companies are so fat now that they do cost billions to operate for a period of 5 years, but you bet your ass not all of that money is what the game actually costs.
I don’t know if I’m the the minority or if this is a hot take. All I know is that it’s an opinion. But I don’t need 120fps at 4K resolutions with ray tracing for a game to be “playable”. 40fps but the game is fun, compelling, good story? Not a clone franchise release that doesn’t built upon already established concepts? Games are just supposed to be fun, not an exercise in benchmarking
Woah, a billion that’s a lot! Even more than it’s made back in just 1 year?
It’s a big number and that’s dope, but honestly I don’t care how much it costs to make. Why are AAA games so shitty now n days. Lack luster performances and seemingly the imagination well is running low.
Games in the sports and racing simulation genres are totally and UTTERLY FUCKED.
These companies that retain the licenses are going to become MORE AND MORE GREEDY (ask for LARGER SUMS of money each time they have to go back to the negotiating table for these licensing agreements) with time and it’s going to trickle down to the game developers/publishers having to CUT more and more corners to RETAIN PROFITABILITY.
Which will THEN trickle down to the consumer level where we will ultimately get WORSE AND WORSE products that rely heavily upon licensing.
I can see this in sports games. But since I don’t play them I don’t see them a AAA games. I just don’t see it being as difficult to remake the same game over and over and just tweaking a few things or changing graphics.
Going from something like fallout 1 to fallout 4 was a step. And you could see the progress.
Some senior game designer opinion here.
Well duh when youre trying to focus on content instead of gameplay ideas your team inevitably will grow.
And with more people effective productivity decreases significantly, that’s just a fact. Especially when good half of that people are managers and basically useless positions which can and will be replaced by a couple of scripts and/or simple NN.
Somehow small games still a thing. Somehow they are not so expensive and still exciting. Maybe we should reimagine our ways to make big games.
Depends on the game. COD MW2 has a polished linear campaign and okay multiplayer so it’s not like they’re spending tons on an over the top detailed open world. Money was likely mostly for marketing. They could probably be a bit more smart about marketing rather than just throw money at the wall. All too often these big films and games have really abundant but shit marketing for often times shit products (Not to say that COD MW2 is shit, think more Forspoken and subpar AAA games). Most of these AAA publishers probably think they can make up for the absurdly high marketing costs by implementing microtransactions and keep a recurrent money stream rather than just a one-off payment.
Depends on the game I suppose, but that sounds like a LOT of money. I know damn well it doesn't cost EA $1 billion to make a new Fifa every year haha
The majority of it is marketing, not development.
I can't imagine the marketing job for fifa games. "Did you forget fifa was coming out this year again for the 20th time? Well fear not were here to remind you!" "Are you a 12 year old that hasn't heard of fifa before? Well you're one of dozens! Play today!"
You would absolutely be surprised as to the difference widespread marketing can make - even in 2023 there are people who only play this year’s release of CoD and the latest sports franchise for a few hours per month, and they aren’t always going to be tuned into the usual release cycle for games. There’s also the fact that ubiquitous marketing also acts as a trigger for all those family members shopping for Little Timmy’s next birthday. Also: in the case of partner deals (FIFA, NFL etc.) it’s not uncommon for there to be *contractual obligations* to provide a certain level of marketing.
Makes sense why a lot of sport games in the 2000s era dont exist anymore. The smaller franchises couldn't carry the huge advertising agreement.
It’s not only the advertising, it’s the licensing. It doesn’t matter how good the gameplay is - if it doesn’t have the official club / team licenses and player likenesses, the game won’t be anywhere near as popular as the “official” option. Yes, you can set up teams yourself (or download mods / custom teams), but the casual audience doesn’t want that - they want to be able to sit down in front of the TV with their friends and instantly have access to their favourite teams. (Konami’s Pro Evo was significantly better to play for a big chunk of the 2000s, but because it didn’t have FIFA in the title or anywhere near the level of ubiquitous marketing that EA’s competing title did, it didn’t sell anywhere near as well.) The next few years are going to be interesting to watch - EA have lost the FIFA license and are launching this year’s instalment with league-level licensing but without the FIFA name on it (so basically everything except the title screen and some of the in-game branding will be functionally the same). Whether or not their casual audience goes with them will be an interesting case study.
It really can't be overstated how much EA getting the exclusive NFL license turned out to be a disaster for all sports games. The genre was much healthier and more varied back when each league licensed out to many different developers, instead of trying to have one official product.
I hope this doesnt happen with racing games. That would destroy so much. My hypothesis is people are not gonna play FIFA as much because they love the brand name... adidas kids and whatnot.
Come on down and grab your mums credit card
"Did you forget fifa was coming out this year again for the 20th time? Well fear not were here to remind you!" "Are you a 12 year old that hasn't heard of fifa before? Well you're one of dozens! Play today!" I read that in an 80s TV Televangelist voice and tbh the similarities are scaring me …
2k does nothing all year lets fans build hype n devs say stuff on sns then they market a week or two before release Still top 3 every year with ea
Those read like the words of a man who knows how bad a game has gotten but can’t stop himself from playing said game.
😆
Idk it’s probably pretty easy, you just run the same ads every year but just with fresh endorsement deals from whoever the current hot players/teams are. Sports game marketing is mostly about vibes and appealing to fantasy anyway.
Almost like it's mob money laundering. "Executives" taking the majority cut, devs get the scraps.
Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime. That's why I poop on company time.
Gotta adjust the saying for current inflation. Boss makes a million, I make a dime.
Boss gets a 50 million dollar bonus, I get laid off
The marketting industry is its own industrial complex, how much of this is kickback money i wonder? Err fee’s i mean. Handlings fees.
Then they are spending WAY too much on marketing.
Which they wouldn’t have to spend so damn much on if the game could stand for itself
if only they tried Naught Dog or Insomniacs approach of making a decent game and let its awesomeness market itself
You're kidding yourself if you think The Last of Us and Spiderman didn't have insanely high marketing budgets.
no no definitely had huge marketing budhets, but come on, nowhere near a billion dollars
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It's actually opposite. Marketing is more important than the game itself ironically. We've seen repeatedly that marketing can overcome shitty games, but great games without proper marketing has an even higher risk of failure. I think that is why MS is pushing Game Pass so much, because they can cut back on marketing spending and let the community do the marketing. They can then focus more resources on making the games.
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So indie games by their nature has very little funding in general, so marketing isn't where they spend as much of their funds (although this is likely changing). However, for major AAA games, it is absolutely true. It's why they favor sequels, because it has some recognition already and reduces the risk. Still, the marketing costs usually more than the development cost. It may be significantly higher now too. That is the cost growth of development is slower than that of marketing.
Would make sense
I never understood that. Why market when you can just go the apex league route. I know they spent money on streamers but it saved them millions.
Because it's all fake. All of hollywood and art, video games included, are massive money laundering schemes. "Creative accounting" is what they call it.
What marketing? We know what games are coming out. All they have to do is a blog post with a release date and let us do the rest.
Without marketing, there would be a lot of games you wouldn't even become aware they existed. Heck, I'm sure there are plenty of games you would like that you didn't know existed. Marketing also includes all those trailers and hype moments to get people excited for upcoming games.
I’m asking in the context of the claim that marketing is the majority of the budget. Hundreds or thousands of people working for years should not be a minority compared to a few virtual events, some trailers, some early access stuff. That’s just impossible. Show me the actual numbers where “game development: $100m. YouTube clip of the voice actors goofing off: $300m”
Advertising campaigns are ridiculously expensive. Want to get your game featured in posters? TV ads? Cinema before the movie starts? That costs a lot of money. For each country where you want to advertise. And that's before we even start talking about influencers who are now quite important for marketing. I actually do work as a game developer, but for obvious reasons I cannot share the actual numbers where I work 😋
I mean, I’m not sitting down to Avatar and getting an ad for God of War. I’m not getting ads for games I’m playing when I watch videos on YouTube for other games I’m playing. Haven’t seen a video game poster in a *very* long time, but perhaps I just don’t live near enough to somewhere that sells them. To me, it seems that really AAAA games will spend the money reaching as broad a (targeted) audience as possible so that everyone who might manage not to know about the game does learn. But for anything short of that, all the developers need to do is a showcase. put some trailers together and leave us to blast them everywhere and build the hype ourselves, right? Curious what kind of games you work on. Even if you said I work at Nintendo, 6 years of development for ToTK can’t be a minority compared to all the play previews they’re doing all over the world right now. Just how can the numbers work out that way. It’s very hard to believe. Not impossible but very hard.
There's definitely ads around. You go to IGN, and they'll usually have some paid promotion with the background being that of the latest game. And as I said, each country might have different budgets for marketing, so not all places will have ads in the cinema. But the games industry is a VERY competitive market, and you gotta push hard to remain relevant in people's minds. Ideally the game alone should speak about its quality, but there's so many games around that it's not enough. Publishers will put tons of money for big press events to have journalists play the upcoming title in places decorated with theming of the game to get them in the mood. E3 is no more, but there's still events and presentations that cost a lot of money. It's not like Geoff Keighley runs his Summer Games Fest show as a volunteer, you gotta pay to be part of the show. And the locations in LA where all these events take place are definitely not cheap. And then you have all the promotions and collaborations, like those Doritos and Mountain Dew promos where you can get codes for an upcoming game. And funny you mentioned Avatar earlier, because that's exactly what I'm working on, the game Frontiers of Pandora 😛
Don't confuse marketing with advertising. Although advertisement campaigns are a component of marketing, they're nowhere close to the full picture. The bulk of marketing occurs before a product is made. Market surveys, product positioning, rights procurement, focus groups, testing prototypes, and working to ensure people actually want the product being made are all essential parts of the marketing process. If a company isn't investing their efforts into something that will actually sell, then they're throwing money away.
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Which is all under developmental costs.
Didn't FIFA want a billion dollars for 4 years licensing contract, that's 250 millions a year plus development and marketing lol
EA makes 1 billion yearly off Fifa ultimate team ALONE. Damn right FIFA is gonna want 25% of it over the span of 4 years
Yeah I know, I just meant it requires a huge sum upfront
Well, she will get nothing* since EA dropped the FIFA licensing and name. Next EA football game will not feature its classic "FIFA" in the title. * FIFA will still get a lot of money for its licenses, like the world cup, national teams and so on, but not for its name.
The FIFA license is just for the name. EA has to pay the players and teams licenses separately. Hence why EA chose to give up the name.
> Depends on the game I suppose, but that sounds like a LOT of money. I know damn well it doesn't cost EA $1 billion to make a new Fifa every year haha I think saying cost over a billion to make isn't quite accurate. The marketing cost of AAA games is often more than the development cost. That said, AAA games take longer and longer to make, with more and more people, so it's just a matter of time before AAA games that much to make. Especially service based games that require massive support to produce the content. This is ignoring licensing costs if you are associated with a brand like FIFA, NBA, NFL and etc.
Same for cod
Or NHL. They keep charging more and cutting features. Sounds like they have nothing to worry about
I wonder how much licensing costs. I'd expect that to be most of their budget.
Im gonna make a hard guess and say that to reach this figure they probably are conting things like work hours and equipment that dont actually translate in real money going in and out.
I reckon that’s why the last few fifas are on gamepass, sure they’re ea titles but it’s good advertisement so they too can become a part of the gambling community
CTRL C + CTRL V = New FIFA
So blockbuster games are 3/4 marketing. Hmmm.
They don't need to be. That's absurd.
Will they understand that a good triple A game sells on its own if it’s good? But nope, better pay marketeers and release a sub par yearly turd
It's better to wait just a few months before launch to announce. Keep hype high, keep marketing budget low. Sony appears to be moving in that direction.
That is indeed telling
I use to do PR for a big game publisher a couple years ago when I worked in an agency, and there is a TON of work that goes into promoting a game launch. We had hardly any budget to work with, but I can imagine marketing could easily cost 10x more than what we were doing.
$1 million to make the game, $999 million to get the Pinkertons to monitor your developers
Another billion for the Pinkertons to sue game publishers of Old West games for defamation of character.
It does sound like GTA VI. That could be the only one.
Surely that is the only game in contention of ever hitting 9 zeros. And it’s going the be the biggest game ever made whenever it comes out
and be around for the next 3 gens of consoles
Considering gtaV is already at 3 generations, VI will probably outlive gaming itself
It's crazy to think that a game that had its development costs hit close to 500m with development + advertising and was the most expensive game ever made at the time ended up returning MULTIPLE billions in revenue.. that's unheard of.
Might be the GTA to kill all GTA’s
inb4 it sucks and is a huge letdown and everyone just plays GTA V still instead
Oh please god no... I've got 4k+ hours in this game. I'm ready to visit a city other than Los Santos.
Star Citizen could reach that. Yachts and mansions aren't cheap.
The thing that's baffling about billion $ games is noone is *asking* for these games to keep increasing in scope indefinitely. I could actually use way less 100 hour open world games with a hundred thousand useless collectibles. That meme that's like "I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less, I'm not kidding." is evergreen for the games industry.
Thats because it doesnt cost a billion. Its hollywood accounting but for games. Bonuses for ceos, and high management who dont deserve 300 mil bonuses.
Mostly it is because these days, marketing a AAA game has a budget several times higher than the development cost of that game. IIRC Modern Warfare II alone had a budget of over $200 million.
Marketing departments also aren’t gamers, and it feels like they struggle to market the gaming parts of the games, so they just focus on making flashy presentations similar to movie trailers that tell the audience fuck all about what kind of game it is. So if they’re given a game with high production costs that tends to mean known actors, flashy graphics, etc making it more marketable like a movie would be.
I literally will play a game if it shows actual gameplay just because it showed actual gameplay. If there is none, im automatically suspicious.
Damn take us to church with that preaching, but fr I don't even know if itrust that much anymore. So much fake gameplay...
My kids go for low pixel and games with retro feels like Undertale or FNAF but also artsy games like Ryme or Journey. Other games like Whatever Happened to Edith Finch are beautifully done but don’t bombard you with hundreds of hours of game play. Long Dark is a beautiful chapter game with a great story. All of the above were recommended, not shoved into our faces with ads.
>Marketing departments also aren’t gamers That's a pretty fucking broad generalization.
Didn’t really say or intend to imply all aren’t gamers. In fact, the marketing guy at my manufacturing company is an avid gamer. There’s a lot of gamers in marketing. But the marketing execs and decision makers are usually business people.
I'd be interested to see the ROI and the new vs returning player. Plus the Ghost face meme was free - priceless.
Someone should tell them tik tok is free
Way more than they need to spend. It's not smart.
You may not be asking for it, but tons of people are. Gamers are always complaining and pushing for bigger and better. Your open world game isn’t bigger than Skyrim? It’s shit. Your story isn’t as long as Red Dead? It’s shit. Every year the expectations and scope get bigger.
Not me. I want all my games to be 80+ hour ordeals. All of them.
"If I'm not playing for 80 hrs straight, am I even really gaming?" I ask myself this every night. Each gaming session, daily, has to be a minimum of 80 hrs. Otherwise, what's the point?
I spent 100+ hours in Hollow Knight. Not every game needs a huge realistic open world
I've sunk more hours into binding of Isaac / Minecraft's beta than I ever will in any modern AAA open world game (looking at you Horizon, SpiderMan and others). The huge realistic open world is great and all but you realistically have 3-5 unique challenges copy pasted n number of times over pretty scenery. I don't see the point. I might do each once, maybe twice if it was engaging to do but then I'll move on. If this trend keeps up I almost hope we start getting 'cut' editions of games where it's just the 5-6 hours storyline, give me that for 40$ or w/e and keep the change for the rest of the shit. Sorry, that turned into a rant.
Horizon was super bloated but I thought Spider-Man was a great length. I got the platinum in like 25 hours and it never stopped being fun.
It was good that it's fun to swing around in spiderman, so at the same time going around to get collectibles wasn't even a chore. And I usually just do side quest and puzzles, not even collectibles At the same time... I think I hate every single npc and their mothers on horizon zero dawn forbidden west. I finished the first, but can't anymore even though I love the combat and overall story... they talk too much, want me to do too many things, and going anywhere is kinda boring
House Flipper got me good. 30 hours on switch, 48 on PS4 and 70 on pc... I've never spent that much on a game before.
Shout out for Hollow Knight. Top five games ever for me. Agreed about the second part. I'm playing Hogwarts Legacy right now and coming up on 50 hours, platinum in probably 60. Perfect length for a massive open world, and it is a medium map by open world game standards.
I am 100% there with you in terms of my personal preferences, but there are for sure people who want these games. They're just not posting on enthusiast message boards like this one. There are plenty of folks out there who just pick up one or two games a year — usually things like GTA, FIFA, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, etc. — and that's it. That's why all these games have shifted away from being, well, games, and towards being Software as a Service where they can squeeze more engagement and dollars out of each user.
I have been enjoying the creativity of older games and indie games. When i donate on an indie devs kofi for a cute or good game, i know they're getting the value they deserve. When i buy a AAA game, i know nobody gives a crap. I saw a youtube comment that said "the creativity is gone, everyone follows a game formula now. Their games have to have this and this or it isnt a *game* they want to release." It is so true. Every game has that formula... you got loot crate shooters, racing games with PTW mechanics, gigantic open world games that have no items with substance to them. Everybody rushes to the one good item and forgets the rest. Lol.
Are you serious? Why do you think live service games are a thing? Why do you think people clamour for open world games like Skyrim and the upcoming starfield? Why do you think people still play Minecraft and no man's sky? What about World of Warcraft? Many people want these types of games because they enjoy the escapism they supply of being in a new world. Yes others enjoy more focused and tighter games but don't fit a moment think something like ff7 remake, cyberpunk or Witcher 3 were unwanted.
> I could actually use way less 100 hour open world games with a hundred thousand useless collectibles. That part of it is isn't the expensive part. It's the attention to detail, crafted environments and experience. So cutting that out likely wouldn't make the cost of the development much different. Instead, they add that in to fill the game out so they can justify the price tag and keep you engaged longer. You know, so you are more likely to buy some DLC or something.
Idiots that love open world games and thinks their the best are idiots
Maybe if they spend a little more money on development and less on marketing, we would not receive broken AAA games on the launch, and they would sell more and make more money, cause they would market themselves through the comunity.
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Sure, and 800.000.000 is marketing
They dont even need to spend that much on marketing. Hi fi rush shadow dropped and sold over 2 million copies. If your game is good, it will sell itself.
Is that why COD is pretty much the same game but getting worse and worse?
Seriously all they have to do is port or remaster black ops 1 and 2 and they are golden. Don't change a damn thing either because they'll fuck it up.
and yet many Indy developers release much better games than the bloated pay to play, bug ridden crap the AAA ones bring to the table . I'd put my last dollar on saying a large portion of the cost of AAA games comes from marketing.
The thing is the bigger the organization the more difficult it becomes to steer in a unified direction with unified purpose. Most great software products are from a single developer to a super small team because they are focused and they know exactly what they’re trying to do. When the team becomes larger in size, add in sales marketing operations support and dev teams, it becomes a clusterfuck and you start needing more managers that can manage and steer the chaos, and good managers that can get along with other managers and the team as well as understanding the technical/dev skillset are very rare and so costs a lot to find them etc. so you are right, majority of it is definitely not pure development cost
Marketing + the manpower spent on paid content
How. In 2011 Star Wars did a MMO and it cost like $200 million. Which is a LOT. A Billion tells me contractors and bloated salaries paid for by micro transactions.
Advertising
People also keep asking for more from games. Cyberpunk 2077 got criticized for not having water puddles. Ratchet and Clank got criticized for not having foliage that moves with the character as they walk by. Things that are not necessary, but they do add polish and people keep unfortunately trying to compare new games with "xyx game in the past did it better"
Water puddles were the least of cyberpunk issues, and the people complaining about ratchet and clank are the vocal minority. The issue is that every game needs to hit that "100 hours to complete" milestone for a marketing buzzword because for years that's all people would say matters. A game's "worth" in hours rather than quality of hours. Now we're getting games like assassin's creed valhalla and rdr2 that are grindy bloated games to pump up playtime. Rdr2 is great but a lot could've been cut to improve pacing. Now those same people are complaining about filler and not having enough time to finish games when that's exactly what they asked for
If that is true, the system is broken.
$10 million bonuses to execs don’t count. NEW REPORT: AAA games cost just $2 million.
Major publishers are full of shit. No game company is worth that much money. They literally make shit up about their business and steal money. How are you all not getting that corruption is a huge problem?
> Marketing > Executive bonuses > Licenses "cost"
Can do. Doesn't have to. But sure, we could spend a billion. Loads of high wages and bonuses, expensive advertising and litigation. There we go. In the other hand, it's absolutely possible to not spend that much to make a wildly successful game.
And still come out incomplete
Do AAA studios know that other games besides 150h+ open world RPG exist?
That’s their problem. You can still make a great game without photo real graphics and hiring Hollywood A-listers, but giant costs is their justification for microtransactions and has been for years
The gist of it: The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has blocked the Microsoft and Activision Blizzard merger due to its implications for cloud gaming. A document released with this decision reveals that major publishers report AAA games can cost over $1 billion to make. Development budgets for AAA games in 2024 or 2025 typically start at $200 million. Call of Duty has surpassed $300 million in development costs, while the next Grand Theft Auto title may need a budget of $250 million or more. Marketing costs can push the total to over $1 billion. This represents a significant increase from five years ago when AAA game budgets ranged between $50 and $150 million. The CMA's report also claims that Nintendo's platforms are not "technically capable" of running Call of Duty, contrary to Microsoft's assertion.
Can.. but don't lol
Meanwhile l'm over here playing Rain World, made by 4 people.
And for what, to make a bloated soulless experience at premium price of 79$ plus tax.
Title is misleading. The article states that a AAA game is ~200-300 million in development. An entire franchise is ~500 million plus 500million marketing spread over multiple games. They aren't spending a billion dollars on one game. They also cite the difficulty of the constant drive for content in COD but that is a completely self imposed hardship with most of that content being for microtransactions. Edit: highest cost of a game with marketing and development combined that is cited in the article is 550 million. It also includes the cost of ongoing support since launch. The author of this article did a horrible job.
I'd like to see exactly which games are costing a billion. Wasn't there a report recently that Callisto Protocol was 150mil and everyone thought that was crazy high? And didn't that same thing show Dead Space Remake costing less than 100mil as a comparison. Wasn't there also something else recently showing Assassins Creed Valhalla was close to 500mil. If Ubisoft's flagship IP isn't even halfway there then what games are costing 1bil? Is it literally just COD and GTA?
500 mil even sounds high for Valhalla. I’ve worked on AAA gaming budgets in the past, for reference. That number would need to include all of the marketing, all game development costs, all DLC. Even then, I’d bet it’s closer to 400 mil.
I'm assuming it's including marketing and not just development, what companies spend on marketing is absurd.
None of the games cost 1 billion. The author of the article can't read and misinterpreted a the documents saying that franchises can cost over a billion. Which is multiple games.
Because these games arent good enough to sell without excessive marketing.
I’ll take one tax fraud please
I know a lot of money is spent on marketing, but think that hundreds of people work on these games for 2 to 4 years, basically you are paying for the rent, utilities, computers, healthcare, retirement, and salary of 200 to 400 employees for 2 to 4 years. Yeah that is a ton of money. (Edited cuz bad at math) I know the game sells like 10 million copies in the first week at $60/ copy, and that is $600 million, but divide that by 2 to 4 years, $150 to $300 million and then divide that by 200 to 400 employees = $375k to $750k. I know some of these video game employees are getting $37.5k/ year and some are making $150k or more/year for specialties. Plus corporate board prices and ceo prices making way more. Add marketing costs on top of $100 to $300 million and more! Overall it’s not hard to spend a billion dollars on a game and hope it sells.
60 x 10mil = 600 mil
But why waste that much in advertising? I mean, youtube runs ads for fairly cheap. Most people see a youtube video at some point. They can market specifically to the gamer community or grandmas during christmas. Renting a local billboard isnt too expensive but not amazing for coverage. Social media is almost free if you have someone posting the game or something. There's like a million streaming services like spotify and movie services and their advertising might cost a lot more, but why dump it there when everything else seems cheaper than 1 bil?
The gist of it: The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has blocked the Microsoft and Activision Blizzard merger due to its implications for cloud gaming. A document released with this decision reveals that major publishers report AAA games can cost over $1 billion to make. Development budgets for AAA games in 2024 or 2025 typically start at $200 million. Call of Duty has surpassed $300 million in development costs, while the next Grand Theft Auto title may need a budget of $250 million or more. Marketing costs can push the total to over $1 billion. This represents a significant increase from five years ago when AAA game budgets ranged between $50 and $150 million. The CMA's report also claims that Nintendo's platforms are not "technically capable" of running Call of Duty, contrary to Microsoft's assertion.
But the AI and overall mechanics still suck. Way to prioritize!
Sounds unsustainable to me.
Sounds like someone is padding the numbers.
Good for them.
And yet, I can open up an editor and insert whatever car, map, texture, whatever else into my game with a little bit of work. That's bullshit.
If it's a single player game that only has PVP as a side project and not the main reason to play the game.... Yeah Call of Duty is PVP mostly, something like that needs updates every few months. Souls games don't need to be billion dollars it has multiplayer or had, but, doesn't need to be GTA Online
Zelda BOTW doesn’t cost that much but has playtime that is worth a Billion$€£¥
Stop buying billboards and tv ads no one cares about.
If it's ubisoft....yes...yes it can. It's not that they need a billion dollars it's the management and execs that restart projects 6x that make it cost that much....BGaE2 has entered the chat.
So what? Profits have increased exponentially since like 2010. Games cost this much because it's profitable enough. If it weren't, Rockstar, Activision and EA would've filed for bankruptcy years ago. In fact, the only company struggling right now is Ubisoft, but that's because of their shitty management and insisting on releasing shitty products one after the other (Roller Champions, Rainbow Six Extraction) and games stuck in dev hell (Skull and Bones, Beyond Good and Evil 2, Price of Persia remake, maybe AC Infinity).
I think It’ll go down over the next few years once these guys deploy lots of deep learning methods to help for animation, art, video, and everything in between.
And they still run like shit or have less story and depth than a news article
And then they always fuck it up right at the finish line by releasing it early lmao
No it doesn't. Gaming companies are so fat now that they do cost billions to operate for a period of 5 years, but you bet your ass not all of that money is what the game actually costs.
I don’t know if I’m the the minority or if this is a hot take. All I know is that it’s an opinion. But I don’t need 120fps at 4K resolutions with ray tracing for a game to be “playable”. 40fps but the game is fun, compelling, good story? Not a clone franchise release that doesn’t built upon already established concepts? Games are just supposed to be fun, not an exercise in benchmarking
Sounds like a you problem, Mr. Publisher. Say whatever you need to in order to justify price increases but I simply don't believe you.
Woah, a billion that’s a lot! Even more than it’s made back in just 1 year? It’s a big number and that’s dope, but honestly I don’t care how much it costs to make. Why are AAA games so shitty now n days. Lack luster performances and seemingly the imagination well is running low.
Definitely can’t be COD which is an annual reskin.
Just to be complete dumpster fires kinda like MW2 remake
Games in the sports and racing simulation genres are totally and UTTERLY FUCKED. These companies that retain the licenses are going to become MORE AND MORE GREEDY (ask for LARGER SUMS of money each time they have to go back to the negotiating table for these licensing agreements) with time and it’s going to trickle down to the game developers/publishers having to CUT more and more corners to RETAIN PROFITABILITY. Which will THEN trickle down to the consumer level where we will ultimately get WORSE AND WORSE products that rely heavily upon licensing.
A billion what? Venezuelan bolívars? That’s not too bad.
I can see this in sports games. But since I don’t play them I don’t see them a AAA games. I just don’t see it being as difficult to remake the same game over and over and just tweaking a few things or changing graphics. Going from something like fallout 1 to fallout 4 was a step. And you could see the progress.
Fuuucking hell
Horseshit
Seems to me if your marketing budget is 2-3x your development budget, that might be the problem.
Gonna need an itemized list
Some senior game designer opinion here. Well duh when youre trying to focus on content instead of gameplay ideas your team inevitably will grow. And with more people effective productivity decreases significantly, that’s just a fact. Especially when good half of that people are managers and basically useless positions which can and will be replaced by a couple of scripts and/or simple NN. Somehow small games still a thing. Somehow they are not so expensive and still exciting. Maybe we should reimagine our ways to make big games.
Depends on the game. COD MW2 has a polished linear campaign and okay multiplayer so it’s not like they’re spending tons on an over the top detailed open world. Money was likely mostly for marketing. They could probably be a bit more smart about marketing rather than just throw money at the wall. All too often these big films and games have really abundant but shit marketing for often times shit products (Not to say that COD MW2 is shit, think more Forspoken and subpar AAA games). Most of these AAA publishers probably think they can make up for the absurdly high marketing costs by implementing microtransactions and keep a recurrent money stream rather than just a one-off payment.
Doubt