GTA V dev costs over $137 million, says analyst

Sterne Agee's Arvind Bhatia expects Take-Two blockbuster to sell 18 million, make over $230 million in operating profit

[NastyLeftHook0]

lots of quarters and dimes.

[aCasualGamer]

But imagine how much they'll profit.

Rockstar estimates to sell over 25 million copies first year alone, which i believe is an underrated estimate. It'll probably end up selling well over 30-35 million copies.

[ThatGuy2]

Really?Gta 4 today has only sold 12 million...i can see gta 5 selling around 9-14 million...i think it might acully be less do to the sales for games and hardware being low...but hey...games like call of duty keep on selling more ad more every time so i think gta could sell more but dont even think about it getting near 20 million...

[HappyGaming]

It would sell more then the previous GTA because by the looks of it it will be far better and the size of the market is much larger then in 2008.

But lets assume 10 million sales.

10x$50m = $500,000,000
And that based on using ridiculously low boundaries imo.

[RuperttheBear]

@ThatGuy2

GTA4 sold over 20 million.

[aCasualGamer]

Thatguy2@

GTAIV on 360/PS3 sold more than 20 million. Add to that all the "complete editions" and you'll be closer to 24 million.

NOW... Don't you think, there is a chance that with all the hype surrounding the game, it can sell over 25 million on both platforms? Considering there are over 100-120 million potential buyers?

I have no doubt in my mind that this game will sell more than 25 million.

[born2live]

@gumtrol

You are not taking into consideration that, off that $50 bucks, less than half of it goes to the developper... Your example would stil generate a nice profit, though.

[ChronoJoe]

@Thatguy

GTAIV sold around 10m units on each platform, more if you count the complete editions and dlc.

PC figures are untracked outside of physical retail, so whilst for instance vgchartz only lists 0.7m units sold for the PC version, the figures for that platform are much higher.

GTAIV easily sold in the realms of 25-35 million units across platforms.

@Gumtrol

Only about $20 makes it back to the publisher. Something like that, not too much. Plus the marketing budget for the game will probably be similar to it's development costs.

[guitarded77]

They had to spend a lot of $20's researching hookers and cocaine for in game assets.

[omi25p]

Rockstars British so its pennies.

[N0S3LFESTEEM]

What? Wouldn't it be Pounds?

[FarCryLover182]

Thought it was Euro?

[ThatGuy2]

Uk's is not part of the euro money system....but probably will be in the near future

[HappyGaming]

It is just pocket change for a game that is guaranteed to make a profit.

@N0S3LFESTEEM
Pennies are the equivalent of cents in the UK.

@FarCryLover182
Not all countries in the European Union believe the Euro is a good idea.

@ThatGuy2
Are you kidding me?
Britain has been against a European Monetary System ever since it was brought up in the 70s... Watch BBC news they will never say something good about the European Union.

[ATi_Elite]

they are about to sell like 25 million units so who cares!

and the DLC should push GTAV revenue over the billion dollar mark!

I'm ready for GTAV

[Mottsy]

i cant wait to "kill hookers and get points" !

[Prcko]

omg,this is much much muchh

[Software_Lover]

Its sad that "game development" has come to this. But everyone has to get paid somehow.

Motion actors
Music score
voice actors
the actual dev team
packaging
licensing fees
royalty fees
fee fees
shipping costs
shipping fee fee cost
etc etc

[No FanS Land]

in this case, it's not much music score, but more music licensing, imagine all the royalties for the songs on the radio.

[3-4-5]

I would bet some of the younger generation artists or artists that are gamers would possibly take some sort of a discount to have their song in a GTA game.

Think about it.....your song doesn't just get it's 15 minutes of fame on real radio, but it is placed in a game forever !

We can hear their song years from now. It's great advertising for an artist.

But yea the overall cost for this game is much more than I would have thought, but this would be one of the 10 games I would suspect would cost a ton to make.

20+ million copies sold in 2013

10+ million copies sold in 2014

[cleverusername]

They're using music scores in GTAV too apparently

[SandWitch]

So it's the most expensive game to date?

[Jamoora]

Most expensive game would be star wars the old republic with a production cost of 155million and took 5.6 years to make.

[ExitToExisT]

GTA V development still has 8 months ahead, and it would probably surpass that figure

[FarCryLover182]

and that game....tanked?? Right?

[DOMination-]

It is still highly profitable

[Trenta27]

Halo 4: $50 million
God of War 3: $44 million

If that budget for GTA V is true, that is insane compared to other top games. Damn.

[Tultras]

uncharted 3, $20 million.

It's how you use the money.

[Dfooster]

It doesn't work like that. Just think how big the gta map is going to be compared to a more linear experience like uncharted and then think how many people it takes to create something that size in that amount of detail. That's where the money goes, that and creating the assets to populate a world that size with.

[Norrison]

GTA V isn't a 10 hour linear game. Its an open world game with tons of different features.

[ThanatosDMC]

Fernando Martinez and Lazlo better make a comeback.

[Tonester925]

Angry Birds

$1000

[Conzul]

Ouch.

[cleverusername]

GTA4 $100 million, GT5 $80 million

[acmegamer]

Who disagreed to those well known game budgets? lol

[acmegamer]

Halo 4 cost $60 million to develop

[SolidDuck]

This is one franchise that is safe to spend money like that. Unless its just utter crap and unplayable, which with rockstar won't happen, that will easily make a profit. They will prob make there money back the first day, at least in the first week and everything after that will be profit. I wasn't a huge fan of 4, but I'm getting a good vibe from 5 so far.

[YodaCracker]

You may not have been a huge fan of IV, but you can't deny that the game was a technical marvel, and the attention to deal, presentation values and polish are unmatched. You can definitely see where the money goes and it sure does go with Rockstar.

[aliengmr]

Disagree really? Why? I wasn't a huge fan of 4 either (story) and it certainly wasn't polished to perfection on PC day one. Took a patch or 2. (Which I expect so no biggie)

If you disagree with GTA being a safe franchise to poor money in you're an idiot. Gamers are going to day 1 the hell out of it no matter what.

[Jek_Porkins]

That is quite a bit of money, but these games are bigger than movies these days, some of these AAA titles need that much money, but in the end they recoup what they spent in less than a day.

Halo 4 cost over $200 million, but made more than that on the first day of sales. I think this is what hurts smaller developers because they try and compete and they really shouldn't.

[cleverusername]

Nah Halo 4 cost $60 million to make with another $40 million spent on marketing

[nix]

i still got bad after taste from GTAIV.

[omi25p]

You need better taste buds.

[3-4-5]

I tried going back to play San Andreas just to see the difference between that and GTA 4.

San Andreas was almost un-playable in how bad it was compared to 4.

OMG 5 is going to make 4 look the same way.

[FlyingFoxy]

San Andreas is a lot more fun than IV and the multiplayer sucks on IV, San Andreas multiplayer with 100 players online on PC is ton better than anything in IV.

if GTA V is like SA and has 50-100 online multi on PC along with editable game modes it will be great. Cops n Robbers on SAMP that saves your status is a great game mode.

R* could make it so awesome but IV failed badly.

[N0S3LFESTEEM]

That's why you don't eat it

[acmegamer]

That's caused by talking poo-poo!

[JoelT]

What kind of random number is that?

[torchic]

Grand Theft Auto V copies will make that kind of money in a few hours no worries.

[DeadlyFire]

So it will be on next generation consoles after all? Gotta be considering their release date delay and all that money.

[Soldierone]

It won't only be on next gen. With a budget like that you can't afford to only offer the game to less than half of an install base.

It will probably be both, that way the stable PS3 and 360 base can buy it along with the next generation adopters.

[DeadlyFire]

That is exactly what I mean. Next generation as well as current generation.

PC, PS3, X360, WiiU, PS4, XB3. Likely others like Steambox and so on.

[DaveyB]

Development budgets have just gone crazy - and it'll be even worse with the next gen. iOS and Android development must be so much more attractive to the littler guys...

[Dfooster]

All of a sudden the backwards compatibility of the next gen machines is suddenly relevant as dlc for this will surely be dropping post release of the PS4 and 720.

[chukamachine]

I smell lots and lots of bs. 137mill on what,lol.

[Drainage]

paying every single employee ? sound composers? music? writers? engineers? character models? structure models?

shame it wont sell well, because COD

[Psychotica]

GTA V will sell very well..

[mobijoker]

That's a billion earning game man......
It will not look like a billion dollar game unless you spend that much on developing it....
I wish COD devs were investing that much as that game seems to be riding on Brand value NOT on cutting edge tech.....

[Bladesfist]

GTA 5 does not look cutting edge either in the graphics department. It looks better than GTA 4 but it does not even begin to touch ICEnhancer / hi res textures for 4.

[mobijoker]

I agree on that....
But as a developer, you'll always want to release your product to largest consumer base possible and as a publisher you''ll want to recover cash as soon as possible thus focusing on lowest common denominator...In this case, GTA V have to be made focusing XBOX 360 which is at least 5 generations behind current PC graphics...
99% of devs will do the same thing...
The remaining 1%? Those are allocated for Valve, CD Project Red etc who likes to take risks by going beyond borders and that's what makes them so fan favorite.....
But every great dev is not that lucky...Look at devs of Stalker series and Vigil ....

[ame22]

Didn't RDR cost about 100 million dollars, so where's the surprise here?