Destiny Dwarfs GTA 5's Development and Promo Cost With a $500 MIllion Budget: Expected to be Activision's Next Billion Dollar Franchise

For those of you who were floored by GTA 5's massive development and marketing budget of roughly $265 million, Activision Blizzard Inc has dwarfed that amount by announcing a $500 million budget to develop and promote Destiny, the publisher's upcoming sci-fi role-playing title.

The news comes from a Reuters report, in which CEO Bobby Kotick revealed the massive figure, which easily goes beyond the budgets of most Hollywood blockbusters.

The game is being developed by Bungie, the studio that gave the world Microsoft's best selling Halo franchise.

Back in 2010, the studio signed a deal with Activision to develop and publish four Destiny games over the next decade. The agreement also gives Bungie full freedom when it comes to the game's design and creative approach.

"If you're making a $500 million bet you can't take that chance with someone else's IP," Activision CEO told the Milken conference. "The stakes for us are getting bigger."

Destiny Might Replace Call of Duty

Activision's once powerful first-person shooter, the Call of Duty Franchise, is seeing flagging growth with each new game. Gamers are complaining that they aren't seeing anything radically new with each consecutive title as its developers have simply been remixing an age-old formula over and over again.

It now appears as though Activision is trying to come out with a brand new franchise as its flag bearer, so as to entice gamers in an increasingly competitive market.

Next billion dollar franchise

Kotick spoke about his aspirations for the game in February, saying that the company expects Destiny to be the publisher's "next billion dollar franchise" and "the best-selling new video game IP in history."

"Bungie's very ambitious plan is designed to unfold over a 10-year period," said an Activision spokesperson. "The depth of creative content, scope and scale is unprecedented and is required to bring Bungie's vision to life."

He went on to add that apart from investing in a next-gen engine, "robust backend infrastructure are upfront expenditures that should reduce future product development costs."

Release Date

For the uninitiated, Destiny happens to be a mix between the traditional action-shooting game format and a role-playing game, all of which is set in a real-time online world. The game allows players to step into the shoes of the 'Guardians' who protect the last city on chaos-ridden, post-apocalyptic Earth.

It has been slated for a 9 September, 2014 release.