According toars of War: E-Day, and that’s without marketing
- 0-20%: Unlikely – Lacks credible sources
- 21-40%: Questionable – Some concerns remain
- 41-60%: Plausible – Reasonable evidence
- 61-80%: Probable – Strong evidence
- 81-100%: Highly Likely – Multiple reliable sources
Some time ago, Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson revealed on a podcast that the budget for Gears of War: E-Day exceeded $400 million. Right away, Windows Central’s Jez Corden countered that it was lower than that; however, Kotaku’s Ethan Gach claims today that oney higher, more than $500 million, and even that insane figure did not include marketing
Chris Dring from The Game Business quickly chimed in to confirm he heard the same:
Yes, so this, from what I’m told, is very true. $500 million. Unbelievable.
Interestingly, Jez Corden is now backing the figure, though he does add a caveat:
They ain’t wrong on the figure, but there seems to be some disagreement among myral The Coalition operations/ATG contributions
While The Coalition hadn’t released anything since 2019 prior to Gears of War: E-Day (they are rumored to have canceled a smaller project a few years ago), they do regularly provided Unreal Engine-related tech support to other studios
Even so, these are staggering figures that put the game’s profitability at serious risk. At its $69.99 standard launch price, E-Day would need more than 7 million full-price sales to merely match the reported development budget in gross revenue. Recovering that investment through sales alone would require more once deductions and marketing are included, although Premium purchases and revenue attributable to Game Pass could offset part of the bill.
The problem is, early sales estimates are a million miles removed from that. According to Alinea Analytics, Gears of War: E-Day sold just 230K units between PC and Xbox in the first few days on the market. While the figure has certainly grown a bit since, the critical launch momentum simply isn’t there to begin with. Some 722K Game Pass subscribers paid $30 to access the game early, but that isn’t nearly enough.
E-Day is also the first game to mark the return to Xbox console exclusivity, as decided by CEO Asha Sharma. It has been argued that launching the game on PlayStation 5 would have helped its revenue, but when you’re this far off the intended target, does it really matter? All the ports in the world wouldn’t have placed this game anywhere near where it needed to be with this kind of budget.
Part of it is a weakness of the IP, which is a far cry from where it was at its peak under Epic Games. But most of all, I think, this also highlights the untenable position in which most triple-A studios located in the most expensive North American cities find themselves. The Coalition is based in Vancouver, one of Canada’s most expensive urban centers, not far from the likes of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle: maintaining a large team of hundreds over five, six, seven years of development creates a formidable bill before the game has earned a single dollar. These are skilled professionals who want to be paid properly, especially when living near the office is itself expensive.
The future of AAA development may be mostly away from such locations, unless you’re Rockstar or Blizzard or Infinity Ward and can actually afford to be near such places. But the most pressing worry is about The Coalition itself, given that a new round of Xbox layoffs is incoming. Before E-Day had even launched, Eurogamer reported that developers at The Coalition were already worried about losing their jobs after release. The departure of story director Juan Vaca, laid off shortly after celebrating the game going gold, had apparently shaken whatever confidence remained.
There was another particularly unpleasant wrinkle: developers were allegedly expecting a Metacritic-linked bonus near the end of October, but eligibility depended on still being employed when it was paid. That raised the prospect of some people missing out on a reward for their work if they were dismissed beforehand. Hopefully, even if the layoffs happen, Microsoft won’t pursue this loophole to avoid paying them.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief.
In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech’s gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews.
Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications.
His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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