Activision has invested $500 million in Destiny

Activision is betting big on Bungie and its new IP, Destiny, having already sunk half a billion dollars in to the project, making it a huge gamble for both the publisher and the developer.

According to Reuters, the Call of Duty publisher is spending $500 million on developing and advertising with a lot of money going in to the game's engine and server infrastructure to make its ten year development plan cheaper in the long run.

The huge figure was confirmed by an Activision spokesperson but it also includes “marketing, packaging, infrastructure support, royalties and other costs.” If these numbers are correct then Destiny will need to ship between 15 and 16 million copies in order to break even, which would also put it in the top 25 best selling games of all time.

To compare, GTA V cost $260 million to develop for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 and went on to sell 32.5 million units, making it the fastest and top selling video game. However, Destiny has plenty of time to sell that many units as the game has an ambitious ten year plan:

“Bungie's very ambitious plan is designed to unfold over a 10-year period. The depth of creative content, scope and scale is unprecedented and is required to bring Bungie's vision to life. Investment in the next-gen engine and a robust backend infrastructure are upfront expenditures that should reduce future product development costs. Over the long term, we expect the ultimate product costs to be roughly in line with other triple-A titles.”

KitGuru Says: Activision is investing a ton of money in to this game so it won't be good for the company if it ends up with negative reviews and flops. However, the publisher also has over ten years worth of Call of Duty revenue to fall back on.

Source: Reuters

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