The Budget of KH 3

[Qiesamuel]

I wonder how much the budget of KH 3 is, both production and marketing. Most importantly, I'm concerned with production cost. We know that the bigger the production cost is, the bigger production value will be. From the trailers so far, it seems that the budget of KH 3 is much bigger than KH 1's and 2's, but it might look like that because they're using more powerful engine so I'm not really sure about this.

For comparison here is the list of budget of Square Enix's games:

Final Fantasy VII (1997) - $80-145 M
Final Fantasy IX (2000) - $40+ M
Final Fantasy XIII (2009) - $65 M (production cost only)
Tomb Raider (2013) - $100 M

And here is the budget of other AAA games not made by Square Enix:

Red Dead Redemption (2010) - $100 M
Grand Theft Auto V (2013) - $265 M
Destiny (2014) - FREAKING $500 M
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015) - $81 M
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015) - $80 M
Star Citizen (6 years in development and still ongoing) - $176 M (obviously still raising)

I hope they don't hesitant to pour as much money as possible for KH 3, but again it all depends on their projection of how many KH 3 will sell.

 

[luuizhenriquem]

I think it's between 70 - 100M

 

[Ballad of Caius]

Triple AAA video game projects tend to have a budget of $100. Half of that goes into marketing.

 

[UltimaXOmega]

LMFAO at Destiny's 500 mil down the toilet.

 

[Recon]

LMFAO at Destiny's 500 mil down the toilet.

I think this was debunked. Source.

KH3's budget will be the highest of any entry in the series, that you can bet on.

 

[Carnagewake]

I wouldn't be surprised if production budget broke 100 million.

Especially if you factor in the work that's been done since development was announced at E3 2013. It's been 5 years since then with probably closer to 4 years of actual progress getting done (just a guess) and that is really the maximum time a AAA title wants to take (with some exceptions) to maximize cost to potential profit.

Getting a title out faster means pay more people for work and they have been running at 120% for a while I would imagine.

I remember reading that whatever your production cost is should be what you want to spend on marketing costs.

It's worth noting that it costs more to make games in North America than Japan too.

 

[Darkspawn]

Square Enix will probably make about $25-30 per copy sold. If the game sells 4,000,000 copies like KH2, the profit on a $100 million budget would only be about $8 million. That would put the profit margin dangerously low, I think.

However, I also think this game is going to cost even more than that. With the probablility of even higher profile voice actors than usual, the game’s lengthy development, and the cost of having one of the largest teams in Square Enix history featuring both SE and Disney staff, I can’t see it costing equal/less than the Tomb Raider reboot.

That means they’ll need to sell the hell out of this game. I honestly think it will need to top the sales of the original KH to be profitable. It might be possible if they release it at the right time without interference from other games and they really push the newer Disney properties to attract new young players. Plus, the added Xbox audience for the first time. I’d love to see this game get to 7 million like FFXV.

 

[Ballad of Caius]

Square Enix will probably make about $25-30 per copy sold. If the game sells 4,000,000 copies like KH2, the profit on a $100 million budget would only be about $8 million. That would put the profit margin dangerously low, I think.

However, I also think this game is going to cost even more than that. With the probablility of even higher profile voice actors than usual, the game’s lengthy development, and the cost of having one of the largest teams in Square Enix history featuring both SE and Disney staff, I can’t see it costing equal/less than the Tomb Raider reboot.

That means they’ll need to sell the hell out of this game. I honestly think it will need to top the sales of the original KH to be profitable. It might be possible if they release it at the right time without interference from other games and they really push the newer Disney properties to attract new young players. Plus, the added Xbox audience for the first time. I’d love to see this game get to 7 million like FFXV.

It will. Especially if they apply their games as a service model. I can imagine SE adding a world every three months or so to maintain the game fresh and have a reason to market it beyond the normal edition of the game. Maybe a season pass. Maybe a Game of the Year Edition a year from now.