Modern Warfare 2 cost revealed
On November - 19 - 2009
Now, everybody knows that Modern Warfare 2 grossed a whopping $550 million worldwide in first five days of launch. But how much the game cost to produce? According to latimes.com, Modern Warfare 2 cost $40 million to $50 million to produce, but if you add marketing expenses and the cost of producing and distributing discs, the launch budget was $200 million.
Infinity Wards latest FPS game has managed to set a new record for entertainment media, beating Hollywood epics like Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which earned a mere $394 million. Also, it managed to beat its nearest rival in gaming media, GTA 4, which grossed $500 million in the same time frame.
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WOW 150 million on ads and disc distribution. Too much I can say.
Posted on November 19th, 2009 at 10:58 am
Sorry but it is Bolocks that the Game costs 40 to 50 million to produce “common sense” since the engine was there and their own already, plus a very small self financed team… I would be surprised if it did cost more then 5 million.
Posted on November 19th, 2009 at 11:02 am
@ Denis the enguine was edited and their alot of new changes. I wasnt surpriesd by the 40 – 50 figure. Infinity ward arnt self financed else they wouldnt need activtion. Activtion payd their wages for two years and brought them all their equitment. Think video editors website editors , music composers voice actors motion cap work artist a lot of work goes into a commerial game which activtion all pay for . I read an article where they said the budget was ridiculously huge
Posted on November 19th, 2009 at 11:12 am
50 million dollars and they had already the graphics engine from the previous one?
And moreover, the spent 150 millions for advertising? Sorry but I don’t believe it, not in a million of years, it’s a lie.
Posted on November 19th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
no way rockstar stil win
Posted on November 19th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
If it cost so much then why is it so shite?
Posted on November 19th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
i don’t believe it 200mil, and still removing features like console/dedicated servers/mod support
same engine, & sounds
the game probably cost 5 dollar to make
Posted on November 19th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
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Posted on November 19th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
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Posted on November 19th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
solidsnake WOW 150 million on ads and disc distribution. Too much I can say.
I guess FAGS are expensive.
Posted on November 19th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
40 mill maybe but 200$ overall ???? movies like AVATAR dont get this much in advertisement … this is B$
Posted on November 19th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
do any of you even know the cost of advertisment, its expensive, even if you only consider tv advertisment, fitting it into designated time slots, on multiple channels on a global scale. Thats just one form of advertisment. this figure doesnt shock me at all, and it shows it was worth it, they more than doubled the total cost from production to distribuation of final product in 5 days alone.
Posted on November 19th, 2009 at 11:06 pm
Hi,
I think the gaming public is pretty ignorant of Dev costs. Would it surprise you if I said the average gaming studio, with one game in development, is burning about 1 million dollars(US) a month! That’s just wages and keeping a building heated/cooled, electricity etc etc. That’s before they start paying for new hardware, networks, upgrades for old spec PC’s, software, training for staff etc etc etc… the list goes on. Also, there tends to be a degree of ramp-up towards the end of a dev cycle (art/code/testing), outsourcing and insourcing(contractors) to help meet deadlines. A 2-3 year project can easily eat 30-0 million on an average title.
MW2 is a premium title… you can bet they’ve hired the best and the cost of wages are high. Personally I think 30-35 million across 2 years would be close, considering they built upon a previous engine.
As you can see ‘guestimates’ of $5 million are way off…. dev costs are ludicrous this generation.
Posted on November 20th, 2009 at 12:02 am
I can assure anyone that publishers bull about how much games cost to produce. If Warfare 2 sold for say £45, I bet something like £25 of it goes to the publisher, then out of that £25, you have to take out production, advertising, development costs to name a few things. it’s a load of bull when I hear/read of figures like £500 million. And did they need to advertise Warfare 2? It would of still sold by relying on magazine reviews, and everyone knew it was going to come out anyway. I use to work in the industry, never believe what publishers and even magazine tell you.
Posted on November 20th, 2009 at 4:52 am
If this budget is hard to believe than it just shows the lack of knowledge people have…
Posted on November 20th, 2009 at 7:58 am
50M?
bullshit!
25,30M ok but 50M i dont think so.
if i remember right GG finally came out and announced how much KZ2 cost in dev and it was between 35-45M
and that was in development for 5 freaking years compare to MW2s 2 years.
dident polyphony digital just announce GT5s development has cost roughly 50M?
and thats a 10 times bigger, better game than MW2.
and again thats been in development since the beginning of time!
50M is a complete utter load of bull shit.
moneyvision are just using that as a excuse to up the prices.
if this cost 50M than i would hate to see what uncharted 2 or heavy rain cost because there using real actors and motion capture techniques which are fucking expensive and IW did not use them for MW2.
Posted on November 20th, 2009 at 9:15 am
550 mil and no one cares about the terrible game
shut the fuck up and just stop talking about this bad terrorist hand guide
Posted on November 20th, 2009 at 9:54 am
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