AAA game budgets have seemed to enter a ridiculous territory. Where even a relatively linear cover shooter like Gears of War: E-Day can cost half as much as Grand Theft Auto 6. That’s according to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, who claimed that Microsoft spent a shocking $500 million on its latest Gears of War entry.
This was nonchalantly revealed during his latest podcast, titled The Real Reason EA Shut Down BioWare. Schreier brought up the Gears of War: E-Day budget while discussing BioWare’s closure and layoffs across Electronic Arts. “We just saw Gears of War: E-Day cost $500 million to XBOX, and that is a real number,” he stressed. “That is real.”
Avid observers of gaming news shouldn’t be surprised by how bloated AAA development costs have become. Back in March, Schreier reported that AAA budgets now reach $300 million, sometimes ‘much more.’ That’s before counting marketing and executive compensation, which can easily add tens of millions more.
Still, this figure is particularly surprising considering Gears of War is known for tightly designed, cinematic campaigns rather than sprawling open worlds. Sure, E-Day isn’t entirely linear and crammed with talking-and-walking sections in the first place. We noted in our review that the game “has raised the bar once more,” featuring enjoyable semi-open-world segments reminiscent of Gears 5.
Nevertheless, a half-billion budget could soon become the new AAA standard, considering this isn’t the first recent game reportedly exceeding the $300 million milestone. The Game Business recently claimed that Hideo Kojima’s Physint carries a staggering $400 million budget. Originally backed by PlayStation, the espionage project found a new home at XBOX after Sony pulled out in September. Many cheered, but who knows how much Microsoft actually spent to keep Kojima’s ambitious project afloat?
What’s more, these massive investments come amid the industry’s increasing obsession with cutting costs. Schreier argued that ballooning budgets are pushing publishers to lay off employees, outsource development, and prioritize well-known names over riskier projects. That seemed to have become the main reason why Mass Effect 5 was cancelled.
“In EA’s case, there’s few bigger franchises than Star Wars. Star Wars Battlefront 3 is seen as a much less risky bet within EA than a new Mass Effect game was,” Schreier continued, perhaps also confirming the existence of the highly rumored new Battlefront game.
With Microsoft itself having gone through multiple rounds of layoffs and ‘restructuring,’ the irony is definitely hard to miss. XBOX is still willing to pour hundreds of millions into individual games, even as it keeps chainsawing the very people needed to make them.
