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Horizon ZD Production cost at least €45 / ~$47 mil, peak team 250 people + 100 china

Interview with a Dutch national news paper for the release of the game today some info that might be new but at least thread worthy if not discussed before:

(at least) €45 / ~$47 mil production cost
peak team 250 people + 100 china (outsource for art I assume)
6 years in total to make incl pre-production with 20 staff.

(Dutch)
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2017/02/2...tie-van-nederland-is-gemaakt-6962270-a1547873

(English google translate)

Guerrilla is the only Dutch studio playing in the Champions League of the global gaming industry. The studio makes blockbuster games "being played by millions of gamers around the world. With a production budget of more than 45 million - Guerrilla does not mention the exact amount - Horizon Zero Dawn is the largest Dutch media production ever.
In 2013, after the publication of the fourth volume of Guerilla's Killzone series, the rest of the studio plunges on the project, 250 people in the Netherlands and another hundred in China sculpt the parts into a whole. "We talk constantly to know what everybody is doing," says Wolterbeek Muller.

/Buy me a $50 mil dutch AAA game if old.
 

Turkoop

Banned
45 million (at least) sounds very low for me. GTAV was around 230 million, and Horizon is big, unique and really well made. I was thinking about 80 million at least.
Watch Dogs 1 was also about 45 million
 

CHC

Member
Also pretty impressive budget considering they got a whole new engine out of this that will serve them and other studios, presumably, for years to come.
 
Considering the production values, the team size and the scope of the game that'd not all that much. Damn. And I suspect a sequel would be cheaper sInce they have the groundwork done for making more RPG's.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
45 million (at least) sounds very low for me. GTAV was around 230 million, and Horizon is big, unique and really well made. I was thinking about 80 million at least.
Watch Dogs 1 was also about 45 million

The GTA number rolls in marketing to my knowledge, but that was still well over $100 or even $150 million IIRC, the former of which is closer to standard these days.
 

keidashxd

Member
I think it's not an expensive development being 250 + 100 in its peak, and 6 years total it's a long road to achieve starting with only 20 people, I'm sure god of war 3 cost more or less the same or maybe more...
 

Gudji

Member
45 million (at least) sounds very low for me. GTAV was around 230 million, and Horizon is big, unique and really well made. I was thinking about 80 million at least.
Watch Dogs 1 was also about 45 million

Witcher 3 was around 81 Million. I wonder what GG would achieve with a bigger budget, hope we get to find out in the sequel.
 

kruis

Exposing the sinister cartel of retailers who allow companies to pay for advertising space.
6 years. Damn.

Three years preproduction according to the article, three years with a full team (after the release of Killzone: Shadowfall in November 2013).
 

Turkoop

Banned
The GTA number rolls in marketing to my knowledge, but that was still well over $100 or even $150 million IIRC, which is closer to standard these days.

Yup, you're right. All costs were about 230 million, only game development took them over 100 million. They have spend so much in Marketing, incredible.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Sony really has tight budgets. I assume Uncharted 4 was more expensive, right?

I'd be surprised if Uncharted 4 wasn't at least $80 million given the location of the studio and I believe a larger team size.

$100 million might be more realistic.

Can be around that, yeah. For a AAA game like Call of Duty or Battlefield, certainly at least 30-40m. I'm truly shocked if that GG figure includes the marketing budget as well. Madness if true.

"Production" budget would be development budget in gaming terms.
 

ncslamm

Member
It's crazy how much it takes to make a big game these days. Then on the other hand you have indies making amazing titles for thousands.
 

Apathy

Member
Wow, that is impressive. For as long as they have been working on it and how it looks and how big it seems, thats quite good money management.
 

napata

Member
Why do so many people here read "at least 45 million" as exactly 45 million? It's just the lower bound. It might be 46 million or it might be 500 million. We just don't know.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Marketing costs can vary pretty hard based on publisher preferences because digital advertising is generally much cheaper than television advertising.

Like it's not implausible for two games with the same development budget to have a $20 versus a $60 million advertising budget.
 

Alrus

Member
Seems like a relatively reasonable price. Should have little troubles recouping it's cost considering it's a first part title, the hype and the good reviews.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Is that more or less expensive than Zelda on these fronts.

Mmm... Japanese salaries are a bit lower, but I'd guess at least $40-$50 million given the team size got up to 300 and it's been in development for so long.

That said, it's plausible they just announced the minimum number here that made them the most expensive Dutch production.
 
Good budgeting by the team. I wonder how much was because of the risk due to being a new ip and moving into RPG. Should get more for a sequel.


In top of dev costs it looks like Sony spent a fair bit on marketing.
 

tuxfool

Banned
Witcher 3 was around 81 Million. I wonder what GG would achieve with a bigger budget, hope we get to find out in the sequel.

Development+Marketing costs. Assuming a 50:50 split I'd say the production costs are roughly the same.

That is if we're also assuming the value quoted in the OP is canonical and not just the lower bound.
 
Seems pretty reasonable. They have the extra advantage of that development budget partially helping Kojima productions out with Decima. The sharing between Sony studios must really help them all.
 
I love that companies like GG and CDPR are becoming "titans of industry" in their countries. It's so cool that smaller countries (relatively speaking, in the U.S. here) are able to have companies producing some of the best products in the world in their respective industries.
 
Is it a hidden rule that someone has to mention Zelda in Horizon threads?

Not to be mean, I just think it's funny how it always pops up.

I was debating on whether or not to mention it because of that, actually, but I was genuinely curious on how much budgeting difference is made between these sort of companies with similar workforce numbers.
 
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