The 11 Most Expensive Video Games Ever Made

Over the last decade or so, the cost of developing video games has ballooned massively. With the push to create bigger and more technically impressive games, budgets have continued to rise. That shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. After all, blockbuster titles usually have teams of hundreds of developers working on them. In fact, it is not unusual for recent AAA games to involve more than a thousand designers, programmers, and artists.

What many people don’t realize is that some projects can cost hundreds of millions of dollars to complete. That puts them on a par with summer blockbuster movies, especially when you consider marketing costs. So if you thought video games were not big business, you will be surprised by the budgets of these high-profile releases.

Here are the 11 most expensive video games ever made.

11. APB: All Points Bulletin — $100 million

APB: All Points Bulletin is one of the most notorious games in the history of gaming. The first concepts for the title arose in 2005. However, the project would get stuck in a development cycle that continued for more than five years before its release in 2010. Even then, the game struggled, with the original developer falling into administration. That protracted development period meant that APB: All Points Bulletin cost an estimated $100 million to create.

10. Tomb Raider — $100 million

The Tomb Raider franchise has been around a very long time. However, the series got a reboot in 2013 when Crystal Dynamics took over development duties. As well as completely reworking Lara Croft’s origin story, the game significantly switched up the gameplay. It was in development from 2009 and went through several different phases as the team decided how to approach the game. Ultimately, it is estimated to have cost some $100 million to develop.