Making a video game can be expensive. Or inexpensive. It depends on your ambition. Acitivison Blizzard has placed an enormous amount of faith in Bungie’s ambitious new intellectual property, Destiny. And in that faith, they intend to spend over $500 million on the new game. This quote has been confirmed by a company spokesperson to include “marketing, packaging, infrastructure support, royalties and other costs.”
Destiny is lined up to be one of the most expensive video games in history. In order to profit from this investment, the game will need to sell somewhere between 15 to 16 million units at $60 each.
If you need some comparison, Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto 5 cost over $260 million in development costs, production, and advertisement. The game sold over 32.5 million copies since February. This is almost as much as Hollywood spending. Pirates of the Carribbean: At Worlds End had a budget of $300 million.
Activision Blizzard has a way with working with big IPs. We’ve all see how well games like Call of Duty, Skylanders, and Diablo do under their direction. But we’ve also seen their ruthlessness with axed IPs such as Guitar Hero.
“Bungie’s very ambitious plan is designed to unfold over a 10-year period. The depth of creative content, scope and scale is unprecedented and is required to bring Bungie’s vision to life.” -Activison Spokesperson
CEO, President, and a Director of Activison Blizzard, Robert Kotick, expects Destiny to be Activision Publishing’s next billion-dollar franchise when the company released its fourth quarter earnings on February 6.
Activison wouldn’t be taking such a huge risk with someone else’s IP. They own the rights to the whole project.
“If you’re making a $500 million bet you can’t take that chance with someone else’s IP.” -Kotick
Let’s all hope this game does as well as Activison wants it to. I’d sure hate to see $500 million go down the drain.
Destiny, the new shared-world shooter by Bungie, is scheduled to release September 9th.
