Mass Effect: Universe

What A $500 Million Game Actually Means

• Video game budgets are accounting-based figures that are highly mutable, making direct comparisons between different studios or projects fundamentally misleading.
• The primary driver of rising game budgets is labor cost, which is further inflated by development delays, co-development arrangements, and the inclusion of complex compensation packages like multi-year equity vesting.
• Corporate accounting practices allow studios to shift costs between projects, such as burying expenses from unsuccessful or R&D projects into the P&L of highly profitable titles to improve fiscal optics.