Tekken 8's budget was 'more than double' Tekken 7's

Tekken fighting game guru Katsuhiro Harada delivers an eye-opening look at the inner workings of video games development.

2

Gaming is a very costly and risky venture. Even in the best of times, there's no guarantee that your game will break even, let alone sell millions of copies. 2024's mass layoffs prove that now is far from the best of games in the games industry, and publishers/developers are monetizing nearly all facets of their projects in an attempt to not only recoup rising development budgets but also make profit along the way.

Tekken 8 is one such game with a high budget and an in-game microtransaction store to help make more money. The Tekken Store rolled out today in Tekken 8, and days ago franchise director/producer Katsuhiro Harada gave a frank explanation on why the cosmetic storefront is essential for the game. According to Harada, Tekken 8's budget was more than double that of Tekken 7.

"Development costs are now 10 times more expensive than in the 90's and more than double or nearly triple the cost of Tekken 7. Even the Fight Lounge servers are costly to maintain," Harada said in a lengthy Twitter post.

"In the past, there weren't so many specs and there wasn't online. Plus they didn't have such high resolution and high definition. Now, So many people want the game to run and be supported for a long time. It costs money to continually update the game for that reason."

Harada was directly responding to a user who criticized the Tekken Store's pricing, which charges $4 per in-game cosmetic outfit.

"The economic situation and everything else is changing. If we simply do nothing as he suggests, the game will simply stop running in a few months. I think that is what he wants. So there is no point in talking to him about these realities. He wants us to stop economic activity and stop updating and supporting the game."