Not including support and development costs.
The shooter Marathon from Bungie, released last month on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S, turned out to be one of the company's most expensive projects. According to journalist Paul Tassi from Forbes, the game's budget exceeded $200 million and likely approached the $250 million mark — not including further costs for support and content.
The amount fits well within the current realities of the industry. For comparison, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 cost approximately $300 million, and, according to insiders, the budgets of most AAA projects regularly exceed this mark. A significant portion of the expenses goes to developers' salaries.
At the same time, Marathon has an important difference from series like Call of Duty: the success of the latter practically guarantees annual releases and stable sales, whereas new intellectual property, especially in the service game segment, faces serious risks. In recent years, the market has already seen many expensive projects that were shut down months or even weeks after launch.
