Scopely spent more on marketing Monopoly Go than it cost to make both Dune movies

You probably wouldn’t have expected a mobile version of Monopoly to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, but that’s exactly what happened with Monopoly Go.

In a new interview with Game File, Scopely, the maker of Monopoly Go, unpacked the seven-year road to the game’s launch. Part of that journey, revealed Scopely co-CEO Javier Ferreira, was to spend just under $500 million USD (about $678 million CAD) on marketing and user acquisition. Although the game has more than made that back thanks to over $2 billion USD (about $2.7 billion CAD) in revenue since launching last year, it’s still a staggering cost.

For context, many of the most prominent AAA (big-budget) games tend to cost around $200 million USD (about $271 million CAD). For instance, leaked legal documents last year revealed that PlayStation’s The Last of Us Part II cost $220 million USD (about $300 million CAD) to develop, while Horizon Forbidden West cost $212 million USD (about $287 million CAD) to make. Even Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, which went over budget, cost in the $300 million USD (about $406 million CAD) range.

And outside of gaming, this budget easily surpasses what’s spent on Hollywood blockbusters. For example, most Marvel films tend to cost between $200 million USD (about $271 million CAD) and $250 million USD (about $339 million CAD), while Legendary Pictures spent around $350 million USD (about $475 million CAD) to make both Dune films from Canada’s Denis Villeneuve.

Of course, production budgets aren’t a company’s only expenses, as they also have to pay to market these titles. Still, Monopoly Go‘s marketing and user acquisition spend is a testament to how expensive video games can be to produce and promote across any platform, even mobile.

It’s also interesting to see that the game took seven years to make, given that it’s based on a well-established board game. Ferreira spoke more about Monopoly Go‘s lengthy development cycle in a recent blog post.

Monopoly Go is free to download on both Android and iOS.

Image credit: Hasbro/Scopely

Source: Game File