The wildest video game budgets can't hold a candle to GTA 6

The latest Grand Theft Auto is thought to be the most expensive entertainment product ever made.

Bangla press/Shutterstock When you think about the most expensive entertainment productions ever created, video games are likely not the first thing that comes to mind. Hollywood studios routinely spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a single movie that can have a multi-year production schedule. But video games have actually become just as expensive to produce of late, sometimes even surpassing major films. Case in point: Grand Theft Auto VI looks set to become the most expensive game ever created.

While Rockstar Games hasn't publicly disclosed how much it has spent so far, analysts peg the estimated budget at well over $1 billion, with some putting the current figure at around $1.5 billion. That puts GTA VI in rarefied territory, as it outpaces the known budgets of both major theatrical releases and other AAA games. So what has caused video game development to become so expensive and why is GTA VI 's budget in particular eclipsing other big names?

A billion-dollar video game budget may seem surprising at first glance, but it starts to make sense once you consider that a modern game often has just as many moving pieces as a Hollywood production. You need actors, writers, programmers, animators, designers and composers among others to make an expansive open-world game. And short of a few outliers like the Avatar series, movies are typically in active production for a couple of years. GTA VI has been in active development for closer to a decade. Once a game is nearing completion, it usually goes through a rigorous testing process that requires yet another team.

Apart from a handful of indie breakthroughs, it's common for game budgets to quickly spiral into the double or triple-digit millions these days. Game development can also take several years, with hundreds of employees dedicated to a single project.

Development costs and timelines have been steadily rising, though. In 2023, court documents revealed that Sony Interactive Entertainment had spent $212 million on Horizon Forbidden West and $220 million on The Last of Us: Part II .

More recently, another court filing revealed that Activision's development costs for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War topped $700 million over the course of the game's life cycle. Modern live service games require constant development resources for additional maps, game modes, and new content in general. The initial budget for the base game was almost certainly lower than $700 million.

GTA VI is poised to break that threshold, based on even conservative estimates.