Costs are rising, there aren’t enough sales for everyone, AI hasn’t helped yet. The industry has fallen into a trap of its own growth.
Analysts Hushcrasher — Julie Belzanne and Antoine Mayerowitz — developed a model for estimating the total production budgets of games released on Steam. According to their data, in 2025 the total costs for developing all released titles exceeded 27 billion dollars — 2.7 times more than in 2019 (2.2 times more adjusted for inflation) and 5.4 times more than in 2015. For comparison: over the same period, cinema and streaming platforms spent about 40 billion dollars on content production. The obtained figures align with information from Jason Schreier that the budgets of the largest Western AAA projects today consistently reach and exceed the 300 million dollar mark — the Hushcrasher model outputs a close average of 308 million.
A worrying aspect: the growth in total expenses is explained not only by the increase in budgets of individual games but also by a sharp rise in the number of releases — in 2025 Steam accepted a record 19,000+ new titles. Production costs per project, according to analysts’ estimates, roughly doubled, with the greatest growth recorded in the AA game category — their average budget reached 20 million dollars. As a result, the industry found itself in a vulnerable position: the same audience is adopting more and more games, competition is intensifying, and the number of failed projects is steadily increasing — including…
Research: the total budget for games on Steam in 2025 reached 27 billion dollars — 5.4 times more than ten years ago
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Costs are rising, there aren’t enough sales for everyone, AI hasn’t helped yet. The industry has fallen into a trap of its own growth.