Sony court blunder reveals $200M cost of The Last of Us 2, Horizon Forbidden West
The video game industry is notoriously secretive, capitalizing on hype that makes every announcement a big surprise. Much of video game development is kept under wraps in part to keep fans engaged and excited over every piece of news, but the secrecy also comes from how much games can change in development, and the importance of studios hiding their work from competitors. We very rarely know how much a video game costs to make; we just know that it takes more and more money as games get bigger — maybe “irresponsibly large,” as Bethesda’s Pete Hines said last week.
Microsoft and Activision Blizzard’s legal battle with the Federal Trade Commission is pulling back the curtain on that development, to some extent. Court documents from the companies have largely been redacted, but there’s usually plenty to glean from what isn’t. On Wednesday, a badly redacted document from Sony Interactive Entertainment showed actual numbers for both Horizon Forbidden West and The Last of Us Part 2’s development. And they were expansive: Horizon Forbidden West cost $212 million over a five-year period with 300 full-time developers. The Last of Us Part 2 cost $220 million, Sony said in the documents, over roughly six years with 200 full-time employees.
Sony did great job on the document redactions… not https://t.co/aPQgk9JU8L pic.twitter.com/5rJQbZbbd0
The documents have been pulled from the FTC hearing’s evidence list as of Wednesday, but The Verge’s Tom Warren tweeted a snippet shortly after the documents were uploaded. The numbers likely don’t include Sony’s marketing budget for each game, but the company’s lawyer noted that “marketing costs for AAA games are large, even for established franchises.” It’s unclear, also, whether the number
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