Most Expensive Video Game

Doom 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.