10 Most Expensive Video Games Of All Time

The gaming industry has come a long way. It used to be made up of a couple of passionate programmers sat in their basements coding furiously, hoping to catch the attention of the few companies forward-thinking (or reckless) enough to invest in this newfangled business. Games created on a glorified calculator by one or two smart lads with a vision. Rather basic games, compared to today, but they cost the equivalent of a double cheeseburger and large Coke to produce. Fast forward to today, and things are drastically different. This is now a multi-billion dollar industry, a top-heavy behemoth in the entertainment world, led by massive corporations and development teams. Yes, you get your indie lads who still go it alone, but the commercial leading edge of the industry is elsewhere. It's the multimillion-selling franchises with Hollywood-esque production qualities, made by armies of programming wizards, backed up by NASDAQ-listed publishers and millions of marketing dollars. The top-flight titles that pull in the kind of cash that could fill Scrooge McDuck's vault ten times over. But how much of that is sucked into the roaring furnace that makes it all happen - the development, the R&D, the marketing - and how much is left over when you do the math? When a game can earn the equivalent of a small island country's GDP in a matter of days, you would imagine that they're laughing all the way to the bank. That's until you have a look at what these monstrous games cost to produce. In short, it's bloody frightening. We're talking crazy money here, folks. But let's take a closer look, shall we? It's worth noting that official costings are rarely revealed openly, so exact figures are hard to come by, but industry analysts can give us a pretty accurate idea of what it cost to get these games on store shelves. So, read on for ten of the most ridiculously expensive games ever produced€