"Not sustainable": Developers across the industry react to The Last of Us Part 2's $220 million budget

[John Elden Ring]

Earlier this week, poorly redacted court documents revealed the time and budget allocated to Horizon Forbidden West and The Last of Us Part 2. Both games took more than five years and more than $200 million to develop. It took 300 employees working from 2017 to 2022 to make Horizon Forbidden West at a cost of $212 million, while Naughty Dog peaked at 200 studio employees as it spent $220 million over 70 months.

It's rare that we get this kind of detail on the cost of game development. Earlier this year, news that the poorly-received Forspoken had cost $100 million shocked players. That these two games cost more than double that is no great surprise, but the response to the exact figures has rippled across the industry, with developers helping to put some of those numbers into perspective.

On the one hand, there are the AAA developers. Former Psychonauts 2 developer Lisette Titre-Montgomery noted that Sony spent 220 million over six years to make The Last of Us Part 2 before they saw a single penny in return, claiming that "game teams this size for this long are Not. Sustainable." Former Capcom and Xbox producer Shana put that in further perspective, pointing out that that means the studio was spending $15,000 a month per employee on average – which doesn't necessarily translate to salaries but rather reflects headcount costs – at a total rate of $3 million.

That's understood to be a pretty standard rate in the US, and it highlights why games sometimes can't just simply be delayed - the cost of doing so quickly mounts up. Elsewhere, Bungie producer Nigel Davis points out that this is actually below the market rate for tech jobs, claiming that "almost everyone working in games is taking a pay cut. If we were to work in other tech fields we'd make much more."

Elsewhere, developers have discussed the additional costs not associated with those development figures. Third-party contracts are unlikely to have been included in official headcounts and development budgets, but may number in the several hundreds. Marketing budgets - sometimes as expensive as the development of the game itself - are also not included here.

On the other side of the equation are the indie developers, many of whom would love just a tiny slice of those AAA budgets. Chananda Ekanayake, game director on dating sim Thirsty Suitors, said "$200M+ development budget of a AAA game to indie scale is wild!" Former Vlambeer developer Rami Ismail said that

I'd need a tenth of that to fund 20-30 incredible indie games by super cool devs around the world.

-Indie Dev

That sentiment has been shared a lot elsewhere, with many indie devs suggesting that a fraction of a percent of Naughty Dog's budget could be transformative for their careers. Much of the conversation also revolves around the value to be found in those bigger titles. For example, the work that AAA studios can do around accessibility is significant. But as major publishers start to warn of longer, more expensive dev cycles, there are certainly questions over how much more these budgets can balloon.

Via GamesRadar

 

[Bryank75]

Where were these articles and people to speak out about how unsustainable Gamepass is?

I'd be far more worried about the far reaching effects of gamepass and how it destroys value and is a race to the bottom than a couple of high budget games from a platform holder who is seeing excellent profits from those games.

What do these people want? Lower quality? Just shove some shit out for us all to play and who cares if it's any good? Fucking Redfall?

GTFO.

 

[Zzero]

Loser wants money for his shitty Don't Starve clone, lol.

 

[Alabtrosmyster]

The only thing I see is jealousy.

ND is not 20-30 random indie studios.

 

[SLB1904]

Who cares its not your money lol

 

[Systemshock2023]

As long as it makes money why not? What's unsustainable is having lots of studios aiming for that GaaS hit that will save them.

 

[Tradermark_kalil]

That gentleman with the tweet is very caught up in his own world that his statement is ridiculously irrelevant given the fact that the information is on triple A development costs.

 

[Nym]

Loser wants money for his shitty Don't Starve clone, lol.

Give me a low budget Roll7 project over modern prestige Sony titles any day

 

[ethomaz]

If the game is having more revenue than costs then it is sustainable…

They Twitter guy is just crying that is not being founded as of everybody wants to play these cheap and low quality indies games

I as consumer will pay to play AAA games quality and not indie quality.

 

[ethomaz]

Give me a low budget Roll7 project over modern prestige Sony titles any day

Give me the a triple AAA game that quality like TLOU2 over any indie title any day.

I will happy buy one per month.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

"That sentiment has been shared a lot elsewhere"

Proceeds to provide zero links to these other indie devs complaining about TLOU2 budget. Only other link noting about game production budgets is Microsoft (lol).

AKA "that sentiment" is shared by Microsoft, who don't even make industry-leading AAA games requiring big budgets, therefore it's now a problem for everyone .

Look even if I think $220 million for TLOU2 is a bit excessive, I figure AI advances will help with a lot of that in the near future. But it's still very sustainable, I assume GaaS/live-service expansion will also heavily play into ensuring that sustainability.

 

[Danja1187]

Well it will definitely become unsustainable by the end of this generation. Shawn Layden as much as I think he was part of the reason the PS brand has been diluted. He was right about warning the company about the ballooning budgets years ago.

Personally I feel we are at a point where we really do not need better graphics. They should definitely try to scale down these empty sprawling worlds and try to outsource less.

 

[Airbus]

TLOU 2 cost $220 m are unsustainable

But Halo Infinite cost $500m are ok

How much is Halo Infinite to make?

The exact cost of making Halo Infinite is unknown as it has not released yet. However, the estimated development budget for the Halo Infinite project is around $500 million. This …

www.newzealandrabbitclub.net

Funny nobody there mentioned that

 

[Gediminas]

Why he isn't crying for 500M Halo Infinite and what kind of dog shit it was?

It would make more sense as money was wasted.

 

[Airbus]

Why he isn't crying for 500M Halo Infinite and what kind of dog shit it was?

It would make more sense as money was wasted.

These people trying to put pressure on sony for making big budget project meanwhile xbox are free to do whatever they want

Theyre being selective on who they critisize

 

[anonpuffs]

lmao they got a bunch of indie devs to cry about budgets...maybe if they could make games that sell 10s of millions of copies they wouldn't call that unsustainable

 

[ethomaz]

Side note.

TLOU2 overpaid itself at day one sales alone

So I should use the word “printing money” instead “non sustainable” for TLOU2.

 

[shrike0fth0rns]

Where were these articles and people to speak out about how unsustainable Gamepass is?

I'd be far more worried about the far reaching effects of gamepass and how it destroys value and is a race to the bottom than a couple of high budget games from a platform holder who is seeing excellent profits from those games.

What do these people want? Lower quality? Just shove some shit out for us all to play and who cares if it's any good? Fucking Redfall?

GTFO.

A lot of devs are jealous of Sony first party. Sony pays for quality. Sony isn’t a charity but does support and fund lots of Indy’s. They should be happy with what they get. I would rather one exceptional $200mil game than dozens of mid Indy’s

 

[Nhomnhom]

It more than made it's money back and you could see all that investment reflected in the quality of the game.

 

[Yurinka]

On the other side of the equation are the indie developers, many of whom would love just a tiny slice of those AAA budgets. Chananda Ekanayake, game director on dating sim Thirsty Suitors, said "$200M+ development budget of a AAA game to indie scale is wild!" Former Vlambeer developer Rami Ismail said that


That sentiment has been shared a lot elsewhere, with many indie devs suggesting that a fraction of a percent of Naughty Dog's budget could be transformative for their careers. Much of the conversation also revolves around the value to be found in those bigger titles. For example, the work that AAA studios can do around accessibility is significant. But as major publishers start to warn of longer, more expensive dev cycles, there are certainly questions over how much more these budgets can balloon.

Via GamesRadar

Over 2000 people working in a project, that takes almost half a dozen years to be released. Yes, they are very expensive.

But unlike these indie games, these two games are sequels of games that sold over 20M copies, meaning that they generated like maybe 3-6 times that $220 budget. So yes, they are a risky bet but not that much because most of the games by these studios are profitable.

Indie games normally only sell a few thousand copies and in most cases they aren't profitable. The sequel of a top performing AAA, developed by some of the most talented and experienced people in the business, is a way safer business than to invest in an indie game (or many of them) developed by mostly unknown and unexperienced devs who only made a few games, most of them unprofitable.