Report: Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Budget Was $315 Million, Leaks Reveal

The total budget for Marvel's Spider-Man 2 was revealed in the recent Insomniac leaks to be $315 million, the team's most expensive game yet.

[Jin_Sakai]

It’s crazy how expensive AAA games are becoming to make. The game screams quality though so I believe it.

[darthv72]

Marvel has loft ambitions for the use of their IP so it should be expected that games would tickle the taint of the movie budgets.

[Cockney]

Not sure how much of this is down to marvels "lofty ambitions"
I've no idea of the contract between them but this is all sony's work from creation to publication, insomniacs work here is outstanding and you can see where every penny was spent.

[TheKingKratos]

What marvel got to do with this ?!

Sony's Insomniac is the one who did everything

It's like you look for every opportunity to jab at Sony

[Zeref]

Yet it only made 75 million 🤔

[CrimsonWing69]

That's projected profit based on 10 million sales.

If you look up current sales it's 5 million. It's made a profit... so I don't get the comment. Like, you're surprised that it can make 75 million in profit?

Did you also look at Return on Investment (ROI)?

[P_Bomb]

It just came out. The Spidey games have had long legs.

[Einhander1972]

So, Spider-Man which was their most expensive project which had only been on the market a few weeks has already paid back it's development costs and made nearly 1/3 of it's cost to develop in profits already...

Sounds good to me...

Do you think Redfall made back it's dev costs, how about Forza, has Starfield even made back it's 6+ year dev cycle costs yet?

Ya know, pretty much all this leak actually shows what a strong position Sony/Insomniac are actually in.

[Lightning77]

Not sure why ppl are downvoting. It says it only made 75 million as of right now. The game has long legs so it'll make way more than that, it's only been a few months.

[Zeref]

I meant to say it's "projected" to make 75 million. Which is worse 💀

[EvertonFC]

Dumbo

[DivineHand125]

The game will likely sell at $70 throughout the holidays going into next year.

[Hofstaderman]

Are the mathematical analytic skills of all MS ambassadors so warped from their spinning around engagement? Please check your numbers in context again geniuses.

[elazz]

That’s profit. Not revenue. So income you keep after deducting costs.

And they are also very conservative in projections. Spider man sold 25 million copies. No reason why this shouldn’t do the same within tbe next few years

[Chevalier]

Last game sold 34 million and this projection is only for 10 million sales so you're idiotic comment is not going to age very well. Unless your some kind of idiot that thinks arguably the most popular comic character in the world is not going to sell. Lol

[TheKingKratos]

You are a dumb person... No in fact every single xbot like you is going around with no brain cells.

[Christopher]

I mean, that includes marketing, and that's actually pretty normal for major AAA releases today IMHO.

[thorstein]

Marketing? The marketing department's budget is separate and set at the beginning of the fiscal year.

Their budget covers all games released.

[blackblades]

Yeah, its a reason why the price of games went to $70. Also the time it takes to make them is long. Hopefully one day the cost and time can go down.

[AdonisIsBeast]

Only in America where woke employees try to make the most money to do the least work

[Eonjay]

I mean this is beyond even the max price Microsoft would have paid for GP content. This is just further proof why Sony wouldn't want to put games on their SUB day one.

[Ironmike]

Spiderman 2 is not outstanding it's a good game but its very similar to 1st go on sites like reddit loads of players who bought saying the same ii loved it personally but it's not an outstanding game it's vet good one though

[gold_drake]

i just had a stroke reading that.

no punctuation, no comma, just a a very long sentence haha.

[Ironmike]

Don't worry about mt I don't

[Cockney]

The clues in the name mate, nobody bought spiderman 2 hoping it was different, more of the same but bigger and better and that's what they gave us.

[Chocoburger]

"The clues in the name mate"

😂 Thanks for the laugh! 🤣

[Ironmike]

I agree and iam loving it and to be truthful its most games haven't really blew me away this gen apart from horizon fb West

[maniacmayhem]

These budgets are insane and it's no wonder why developers are sticking with sequels or characters based on recognizable IPs.

This is why Square always puts out bizarre statements of games not meeting expectations because they more than likely didn't.

There has to be a better way to bring in the cost of games without sacrificing the scale and graphic quality we all expect with each new generation.

I personally don't see see how it can be done anytime soon but if this keeps up you're definitely going to see a lot less new IPs, GaaS models and more devs getting bought.

[Shane Kim]

I don't think that's what costs. I think it's overpriced actors, executives, marketing and in this case a licensing fee.

[ChasterMies]

So 4.5M copies to break even and the rest is profit.

[Fishy Fingers]

It isn't.

Even the table in the article shows that. $38 per copy, 8.2m to break even.

[BeHunted]

Nope. From the recent leaks Sony pays Disney Royalties for each copy sold.

Marvel Royalties

Digital Games: 9% to 18% of net sales
Physical Games: 19% to 26% of net sales
DLC: 19% to 26% of net sales
Hardware Bundle: 35% to 50% of Wholesale Bundle Price

It would take more than 4.5million copies sold to break even. No wonder Microsoft refused the Offer....

[Chevalier]

Weird Spiderman sold 30 million copies. Which Xbox exclusive did 30 million in sales in the last decade?! Oh right absolutely none.

"No wonder Microsoft refused the Offer...."

You want to bet they're paying the same or more for Blade? Which guaranteed won't even come close to Spiderman

[__SteakDeck__]

@BeHunted No, No, No. Don’t cope fanboy. MS rejected the offer because they had no studios at the time to make a Marvel game. MS like Sony was offered any Marvel character. They didn’t need to pick SM. Remember MS is making an Indiana Jones game and a Blade game. Since it’s going straight to a subscription service as an exclusive, I’m sure MS has to pay Disney double.

[PassNextquestion]

"The very first Gears of War game cost $12 million to develop, and it made about $100 million in revenue." Tim Sweeney

My gosh how times have changed with game budgets. I think I read somewhere that GTA5 cost about the same to make as Spiderman 2 but that game was made along time ago.

[Sciurus_vulgaris]

How did Gears 2 make only generate $100 million in revenue, when it sold 6 million + copies ?

[PassNextquestion]

"A funny thing happened in the console market, though. Budgets were being bid up. The first Gears of War cost $12 million for us to make. And it made us $100 million in profit. So that was awesome," Sweeney said. "But by Gears of War: Judgment, the game cost about $60 million to build, and made about $100 million still."

Sweeney previously said that Gears of War 3's budget was around four or five times as much as the first game, so about $48 million-$60 million. Gears of War, Gears of War 2, and Gears of War 3 were made primarily by Epic Games alone, while Judgment was developed by Epic and People Can Fly.

Epic started development on its own Gears of War 4 and Sweeney estimated that it would have cost $100 million to make. Part of the reason why Epic sold Gears of War to Microsoft was because of the ballooning budgets of console game development, Sweeney said.

https://www.gamespot.com/ar...

[DivineHand125]

That price is getting close to the budget of the Avengers End game. They really need to bring down the cost of developing these games.

[__SteakDeck__]

It’s not just development, but Marketing.

[DaleCooper]

When a remaster costs $39 million, then you know budgets are out of control.

[aaronaton]

Killzone 2 broke a record in the Netherlands for having a budget of 50m euros.
Spiderman 2 is a good game, but imo Killzone has a more indelible print on gaming history.
Rambling drunken rant over.

[thorstein]

False.

H:FW was "leaked " at 220 m.

Please look up Hollywood Accounting. The games industry is doing this now so they can turn it into a gig industry in order to maximize profits at the expense of the people doing the work.

For comparison, see Godzilla Minus One. Budget: $15 million. It's top tier in quality.

Games are expensive to make, but not nearly anywhere near what people are making up in their heads.

[Sciurus_vulgaris]

Spider-Man 2 is a licensed game, a licensing fee could have affected the budget.

[thorstein]

SONY owns the rights to Spider-Man.

[Sciurus_vulgaris]

@thorstein

Sony owns the rights to produce Spider-Man films. Also, Sony has a license to produce Spider-Man games. Disney, however, owns the Spider-Man IP.

[Sciurus_vulgaris]

The budget would include development, marketing and probably a licensing fee to the Spider-Man IP owner, Disney. A come estimate is that marketing takes up almost half of total development costs.

[InUrFoxHole]

Spider cube, spider cube! That's a whole Lotta $$$

[46player]

I can think of a lot of junk they could have cut out of it and reduced that budget.

[Doomeduk]

How much has halo infinite made so far?
343 were cheering that 500 million was spent so far and that was around the time of Craig Gate

[PassNextquestion]

I couldn't find any numbers for infinite but I did find -

Halo 4" sold $220 million worth of games in the first 24 hours. At $60 a pop, that's 3.7 million copies in just one day. That beats the record "Halo 3" set in 2007 of $170 million in first-day sales.

Microsoft said the first week of sales are on track to top $300 million, which is exactly what "Halo 3" did five years ago.

[Cockney]

Oh I see, I didn't realise Microsoft said so