Avatar's budget, to take a not-too-random example, was $237 million. You're looking at probably about half that for a videogame, which is insane.
Err.. That's not insane at all.
Video game revenue has long outstripped movie revenue[1, 2009]. To pick a non-random example, it too 24 hours for Halo 4 to bring in $220M revenue (as opposed to 17 days for Avatar)[2]
Is it really? I'd have expected an MMO to be a bigger project than an animation movie. There is script writing, animation, 3d modeling, speech and sound in both of them. While the visual quality in a movie has to be higher, there is a LOT of stuff in a modern game that has to be modeled. And then we've not even talked about the programming side. Secondly, keep in mind that very succesful games generate billions dollars of profit, so it would make sense to spend a fraction of that if that improves your chances of becoming the next megahit.
> Secondly, keep in mind that very succesful games generate billions dollars of profit, so it would make sense to spend a fraction of that if that improves your chances of becoming the next megahit.
You also have to support a game after release (of which the costs are not insignificant). Movies, not so much.
Avatar's budget, to take a not-too-random example, was $237 million. You're looking at probably about half that for a videogame, which is insane.