14 DAY TRIAL // Modern Warfare 2 is now out and millions of gamers are estimated to play it before the end of the year, bringing in tens of millions of dollars in revenue for Activision. The publisher is estimating that the title will be one of the biggest videogame releases of all time and, to some people's surprise, it seems that it actually cost less to make than Activision thought initially.
In an interview with Robert Bowling, the community manager at Infinity Ward and one of the most vocal members of the development team, said in an interview with Developed that “We are pretty tight on our budgets. Early on – when we decided to make a sequel – Activision estimated out a ridiculous budget. And we were like: ‘No, we don’t need that’.”
The team always aimed to create the videogame experience they wanted in Modern Warfare 2 and they never thought that only because they had the money to do it they should introduce it in the title. Their message to Activision has been “let us design a game the way we’d always design a game. And let us focus on that.” The team is still somewhere under 100 people, with only about ten of them added specifically to work on the sequel.
The revelation about the cost of the project, which has not been publicly mentioned, sits in stark contrast to the estimated 60 million dollar price tag that the developer of Gran Turismo 5 attached to the Polyphony Digital project. Of course, when it comes to big releases like this, the publisher does not only spend money by paying the studio that actually creates the game but also quite a lot of advertising campaigns and to build up hype before the release date. Modern Warfare 2 has been one of the heaviest advertised titles of his fall.