So Concord tv show cost 50m according to you.
Now break down how the game cost 350m. I'd be interested in how it's broken down to sound reasonable. To me claiming it cost 400m sounds like utter wank.
Okay lets assume 6 years of development-
They start of with at least 80-100 employees in 2018, Probably Monsters raised 265 million to fund the 3 studios under them.
We can assume a burn rate of 25 million/yr for employee salaries for both full time and external contractors for each studio they have as they started having financial problems by 2022 and shuttered one studio
Add in the overheads of real estate, expensive facilities management etc for 10-15 million a year. This is bellevue, washington after all
With bonuses and increments so far we are hitting around 120 million in total costs come 2022 for firewalk, Now Probably monsters starts facing financial troubles so Sony comes in and bails them out.
The dev team increases to 150-170 + increasing contractors brings the burn rate to 40-50 million.
This comes out to around 200-250 million come 2024, Now I think the rush job hiring contractors to finish the game must have cost a premium so add in those costs as well, Add in the marketing costs (streamers, tv show, controllers etc etc). The expensive cinematics add in another 50 million if they stockpiled for at least an year
I bet the whole thing cost anywhere between 300-400 million, even if its 300 that is a disastrous number.
And as stated by the players who liked the game - the game seems to have top notch quality, polish and looks expensive so it is reasonable to expect it to be expensive to make.