Most Expensive Video Game
Written by: tom Filed Under: Art, Electronics, World on October 9th, 2006Doom was a revolutionary first person shooter, released in 1993 to worldwide acclaim. Only 11 people are credited for this game, which took only a year to develop from start to finish. It’s not clear how big the development budget was, but it was typical for most games of that time to have a budgets around $200,000.
Today the production of a video game can cost upwards of tens of millions of dollars and sometimes takes over 5 years to develop. Releasing an A-list title is a massive business undertaking, employing many hundreds of people. An incredible amount of risk is involved in releasing a title. Big name publishers lean towards releasing sequels and safer titles that appeal to a broader audience.
Sometimes an ambitious game developer will completely overrun its budget and development time. Sometimes this results in an epic title that breaks all the rules set before it. More often than not, it results in poor reviews, poor sales and a generally crappy video game. By now you might be wondering, what is the most expensive video game ever made? It’s a Sega Dreamcast game called Shenmue. Released in 1999, the project cost over $20 million and took over 7 years to complete. It was produced and directed by Yu Suzuki for the Sega-AM2 (Sega Amusement Machine Research and Development Department 2).
Shenmue boasted unparalled freedom and interactivity, even a real time weather system. But this wasn’t enough to impress, the most expensive video game received mixed reviews and experienced mediocre sales. Nonetheless, the expensive game inspired a massive fan base that remains active to this day.
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Most Expensive Video Game
Written by: jeremy Filed Under: Art, Electronics, Luxury, World on November 30th, 1999Back in 1993, when the revolutionary first person shooter, Doom, was released, a game could be made by eleven people with a budget that was probably around $200,000. Today, the production of a video game can cost upwards of tens of millions of dollars and sometimes takes over 5 years to develop. Releasing an A-list title is a massive business undertaking, employing hundreds or thousands of people. An incredible amount of risk is involved in releasing a title. Big name publishers lean towards releasing sequels and safer titles that appeal to a broader audience.
Sometimes an ambitious game developer will completely overrun its budget and development time. Sometimes this results in an epic title that breaks all the rules set before it. More often than not, it results in poor reviews, poor sales and a disappointing game.
Arguably one of the latter, the most expensive video game, until recently, was a Sega Dreamcast game called Shenmue. Released in 1999, the project cost over $70 million and took over 7 years to complete. It was produced and directed by Yu Suzuki for the Sega-AM2 (Sega Amusement Machine Research and Development Department 2). Shenmue boasted unparalleled freedom and interactivity and even a real time weather system. But this wasn’t enough to impress many reviewers; the most expensive video game received mixed reviews and experienced mediocre sales. Nonetheless, the expensive game inspired a massive fan base that remains active to this day.
Rockstar North, known for their mature titles, has recently ousted Shenmue from its most expensive position and replaced it with their own offering, Grand Theft Auto IV. Taking place in the fictional Liberty City, a close likeness of New York City, GTA IV also allows players an unequaled level of freedom and interactivity. The in-game radio has over 150 songs which, through a deal with Amazon, players can download in real life. The game even includes two hours of television that a player can watch while ignoring pressing responsibilities such as assassinating suspiciously familiar anti-video game lawyers.
While the exact figure isn’t yet public knowledge, Rockstar North’s president has estimated that the world’s most expensive video game cost about $100 million to make. Luckily for us, the game only costs consumers around $60.
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When people look back on video games made in the late 20th century to the early 21st, i think shenmue will stand out.
Not only because it was expensive, but because it was fantastic!
I true work of art, and a showcase of the talent of the world’s best games maker.
Sega.
i definitely think that shenmue was a kickass dreamcast game. the first time i saw it on a tv show, i was amazed at how detailed it was. it’s a shame that it didn’t sell all that well. maybe if it had more fighting in it, or some stereotypical anime’ stuff.
Shenmue was an amazingly imersive experience.
After completing the first game on the dreamcast i was left thinking that all other types of computer game genre
were boring.
I wish more quality games like shenmue could be made today.
I loved this game, it is one of the best games done for Dreamcast.
In Spain it was acclaimed by critics and hard core gamers loved it too, but it didn’t reach big sells because the major public didn’t get impress by Shenmue.
I still have Shenmue and Shenmue II and i’ve recently started playing them again after remembering how good it was / is! But i really hoped they’d carry on the story, doesn’t look like that’s ever going to happen.
Not to burst anyone’s bubble, but the development budgets for lots of videogames are more than 20 million. At GDC last year the standard seemed to be 40 million as the cost of developing a halfway decent MMORPG.
Does this include PC games like wing commander or WOW.
Indeed, I understand that Square Enix spends somewhere in the range of $30 - $60 million per title.
Shenmue is the only reason why I still have my original dreamcast. I got the Shenmue II port for Xbox and still play it from time to time. This game is simply amazing. Fear not last Iu had heard is that there were plans to release a Shenmue MMORPG in which the main characters would give you missions and such , haven’t heard much follow up about the game. I think the MMORPG is to only come out in China though.
[...] xmen wolverine Hint: It was made for Sega Dreamcast, boasted unparalled freedom and interactivity, even a real time weather system. This wasn ’t enough to impress, however, and the most expensive video game received mixed reviews and experienced mediocre sales. xmen angelread more | digg story [...]
This game was crappy and a huge waste of money. I would rather of taken the 20 million. This game is a disgrace to all video games. I could have pooped in a disk and sealed it. It would have made a better game. Word Up. ROTFLMFAO! booya!!!
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According to Wikipedia, the cost to create Shenmue was $70 Million, not 20. What’s correct?
Apparently (according to wikipedia) shenmue was the most expensive game ever made but it’s been beaten by “Too Human” an action RPG coming out on the xbox360 this august.
hey loser (Church and Tucker). Your an ignorant waste of space. Shenmue is proberly the most underrated game ever, by no fault of its own. The dreamcast platform was the reason for its failure. your favioutre game is proberly tetris you simple prick.
best game ever. i remember playing this when it first came out i was on it for 3 months none stop and had completed it over 50 times. i still play on it today. this is a true computer game.
This is no longer the most expensive game. Too Human for the Xbox 360 has a development budget of US$80-100 million.
Coming in at just over 50 million dollars, the worlds (actual) most expensive video game to date is the wildy successful World of Warcraft.
Over 9 million active paying subscribers, the elephant entered the room in Nov. 2004.
gamespot says the development budget was 70 mil for this game
“Appearances can be deceiving, though - especially when a game packs a development budget of $70 million.”
if youve ever played this game you would understand how much thought went into this game