3 Most Expensive Video Games

Video games have always been quite pricy for many players. Not everybody can buy game after game at a low cost. Top-tier racing games cost about 60 dollars today, which makes them a cool gift for a birthday or Christmas but not an everyday purchase. But how expensive could video games get? This question can be viewed from at least a few different perspectives. Here are some of the most expensive games in the world.

The Most Costly Games to Develop

While most popular games today are sold for about 60 bucks, each title had a different budget in development. Keeping inflation in mind, hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on their production and marketing. Of course, great titles collect a lot more money with physical and digital sales than they spend on development. Nevertheless, some video games had a pretty insane budget to start with. Here are some of the most expensive games created up to date:

Cyberpunk 2077 – this extremely popular title by CD Projekt Red was one of the most anticipated games of all time. And this is no surprise as 316 million dollars were spent during the development and promotion of this title. This sum equals 331 million dollars with inflation. Supported on all kinds of platforms from PlayStation to Windows, Cyberpunk 2077 has quickly become one of the most popular games ever.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – this game by Infinity Ward originally had a 250 million dollar budget in 2009. With the inflation, this is 316 million in the current economy. While this title was released a decade ago, its production costs were almost the same as the expenses for creating Cyberpunk.

Final Fantasy VII – this title released by Square back in 1997 has an insane budget for the nineties. The developers had to spend about 145 million dollars at the time, which equals roughly 245 million now.

These were the top three most expensive titles in terms of production, but there is another interesting criterion to consider.

Top Most Expensive Game Copies Ever Sold

It is easy to buy video games while they are sold everywhere in shops. But what about discontinued games for old consoles? Such copies easily become expensive collectibles among gamers. Here are the three most expensive game copies in 2022:

Super Mario Bros. – this eternal classic released back in 1985 in Japan is one of the most popular games of all time. An original copy of this title was sold for 2 million dollars in 2021.

Super Mario 64 – earlier that year, a copy of another game from the Super Mario franchise was sold for 1,56 million dollars.

The Legend of Zelda – even earlier in 2021, a copy of the first game in the Zelda series was sold for 870 thousand dollars.

While the top three most expensive game copies ever sold are from the Super Mario series, they are all made by Nintendo. This is an interesting pattern, which is quite hard to beat.