How much does it cost to develop a mobile free-2-play game?

Chris Carvalho, COO of Kabam, told about this at the GMIC event held in San Francisco the other day. 

According to him, Kabam spent $500 thousand on the development of its first mobile game. Today, the cost of the project has risen to $5 million. 

According to Ed Fries, one of the creators of Xbox, in 2001 it took from $5 million to $10 million to develop a console project. 

Both speakers did not specify whether it was only about development or about development and promotion. 

PopCap CEO Dave Roberts said that “the gold rush in the mobile market is over.” It is now impossible to attract users to the project without large marketing budgets. 

The only thing that can help reduce marketing expenses is working with big brands, Karvalho said.

He also noted that the developers have not yet figured out how to make story-driven games into free–2-play projects. So, in his opinion, this could be the next big step in the development of the industry.

We, in turn, will add that hiddens built on free-2-play are quite good at presenting history.

What do you think about all this?