The most expensive game ever made?

A pleasingly positive report on Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption in The Daily Mail has pegged the development budget of the game at up to $100m”.

If true, the figure places the title in contention to be the most expensive game ever produced. A report earlier this year named Grand Theft Auto IV – also a Rockstar title – as the most expensive production ever, pinning a $100m figure on its development.

Rockstar’s UK studio boss Neil Stephen previously claimed to MCV that the Western epic, which is released in the UK tomorrow, is our most ambitious game to date and our biggest release this year”.

Yesterday analyst Doug Creutz estimated that the game could sell anything in the region of 2.2m to 4m copies.

However, fellow industry observer Michael Pachter has previously questioned the potential success of the title, stating:

I am not sure that a game set in the late 19th century has tremendous mass appeal. My bias is that a game that is set in the US West will not be particularly appealing to European audiences, and a game where the most powerful weapon is a Gatling gun will not be particularly appealing to US audiences.”