10 Things You Didn't Know About Red Dead Redemption

7. Rockstar Expected It To Lose Money

As mentioned in the introduction, Red Dead Redemption and its sequel were huge successes for Rockstar, to the point where, after GTA, it's the other main property the studio is known for. Again, that seems obvious: Rockstar's stellar open world formula mixed with a classic Western setting should be the perfect equation for making money.

However, not only was the wider world unsure whether the original game was going to succeed, internally the higher ups in Rockstar even expected the project to fail. With an estimated budget of close to $100 million and six years development time, this was an immensely costly product.

The story goes Rockstar was repeatedly told that a Western blockbuster simply wouldn't sell, and some executives by the end had written off any chance of making a profit, finishing production purely as a means to prove that Rockstar San Diego had what it took to craft something well made.

Of course, they proved that AND made a killing, with RDR selling close to 15 million units at the time of writing.