Destiny has joined GTA V as one of the most expensive games ever made – but does huge investment guarantee a good game?

We’ve compared the costs of the most expensive ever video games to their Metacritic scores, as well as units sold since release

Thursday 11 September 2014 12:02 EDT
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Whether you play them or not, video games are a big business. The market was worth £58bn last year, so makers know there’s a lot of potential moolah to be made.

Destiny was released this week, and publishers Activision have announced it’s already sold $500m worth of copies, making it the most successful new video game franchise launch of all time. That also means it's already made as much as was invested into the game.

So does a costly game mean a good game? We’ve compared the costs of the most expensive ever video games to their Metacritic scores, from both reviewers and players, as well as their units sold since release.

Destiny is a new release, so the Metacritic ratings aren’t in yet. As for the other most expensive ever games made, out of the top 12 (12 because the last six games have the same estimated cost of £62m) the highest rated games by critics are GTA IV and V respectively. The highest rated games by players are Final Fantasy VII and Red Dead Redemption (which are also the highest rated games by critics and users collectively).

Comparing the scores between critics and users, Star Wars: The Old Republic and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 were least popular with gamers.

When it comes to sales, GTA V is the most popular by far, with over 30 million copies sold since its 2013 release. Deadpool has sold the least, with just over half a million copies, followed by Too Human.

So were they worth their massive budgets? Scroll through the gallery to decide.

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