How much did Doom 3 cost to make?

[hardcore_gamer]

Accounting for inflation and how expensive would it's development be considered today vs other modern games? And did John develop the engine all or at least mostly by himself? I hear modern game engines require an army of programmers and years of effort to make so I am always blown away by how John was able to make something like this mostly by himself.

[Linguica]

IMDB suggests a production budget of $14 million, which seems a little low but could be right. To compare, Halo 2 and Half-Life 2, both also 2004 games, both had estimated production costs of around $40 million, but both of those games also had much bigger teams than id Software did at the time.

[hardcore_gamer]

5 minutes ago, Linguica said:

IMDB suggests a production budget of $14 million, which seems a little low but could be right. To compare, Halo 2 and Half-Life 2, both also 2004 games, both had estimated production costs of around $40 million, but both of those games also had much bigger teams than id Software did at the time.

 

I find it odd how that difference in cost can be so large. Doom 3 had arguably even better graphics than Half-life 2 did at the time and it's also probably longer. How is it possible that a game like Doom 3 could be made for so much less money and with a much smaller team than something like half-life 2 or Halo 2?

[DoomUK]

18 hours ago, hardcore_gamer said:

How is it possible that a game like Doom 3 could be made for so much less money and with a much smaller team than something like half-life 2 or Halo 2?

 

People cost money.

 

And I'll go out on a limb here and say that Half-Life 2 was probably more ambitious than Doom 3 (can't speak of Halo 2 because I know next to nothing about those games). HL2 had pretty good physics and AI for its time, vehicles, huge open areas with lots of stuff going on etc. Doom 3 had dynamic shadows, which were matched if not surpassed by HL2 and other games in 2004 anyway.

[hardcore_gamer]

1 hour ago, DoomUK said:

Doom 3 had dynamic shadows, which were matched if not surpassed by HL2 and other games in 2004 anyway.

 

Uhm no, Half-life 2's lightning system was nothing like that of Doom 3.

 

And about the game's greater scale than Doom 3's, yea I guess it had a larger variety of environments but for the most part it's still just a corridor shooter. And while there are more animated story characters you only hook up with them so often. That said Doom 3 did not actually have that many different types of levels now that I think about it.

[DoomUK]

Hm. I seem to recall HL2 having excellent lighting, though to be fair it's been like 12 years since I last played it heh. Maybe I'm just thinking of more recent Source games.

[seed]

37 minutes ago, hardcore_gamer said:

And about the game's greater scale than Doom 3's, yea I guess it had a larger variety of environments but for the most part it's still just a corridor shooter.

 

Seriously? Not even Nova Prospekt which takes place inside the prison with the same name felt like corridor shooting, not to mention that the game takes place in open areas most of the time. Don't Water Hazard, Route Kanal, Ravenholm, Anticitizen One, Sandtraps, Highway 17 ring any bells?

 

Doom 3 has much, much more cramped spaces and tight/compact rooms in comparison, and HL2 simply isn't a "corridor shooter" despite the presence of some sections in certain chapters that feel just like that.

Edited June 10, 2018 by Agent6