Battlefield 3 could be PC exclusive but with a quarter of the budget.
And they would still be 10 times better. Half-Life 2 was made with 1/10th the budget of COD MW3 or Battlefield 3 and it was a much better game than these franchises will ever be.
The budget for creating games has been on the rise, absurdingly, like doubling them every year. And games are shittier and shittier every time. Graphics are the same (no money spent there), games are shorter (less man hours spent on content content) so where the hell does all that money go? My theory is that either developers have become a bunch of greedy bastards or publishers lie about the real budgets so that they can ask a higher price, blame piracy and whatnot.
Second one is more likely. I mean the latest COD game is said to have a budget of $200 million. lol that's more than most Hollywood blockbusters*. $200 million for a map pack! $200 million for something that the fan fase has always gladly made for free for HL2, Counter Strike, Unreal tournament, Quake 3, and so on. It's hilarious. Well it would be hilarious if it werent so sad.
*Avatar which is almost entirely CG and thus has a similar work behind, only 10x times more complex, had a budget of $237 million and thousands of people working on it. Hundreds doing the CG alone. Comparing the effort required for creating the realistic world of pandora to the creation of any multi-platform game is absurd.
