Mark Rein, VP at Epic Games, recently discussed game budgets at the London Game Summit. According to GamesIndustry.biz, Rein claimed that Gears of War production has cost around $10 million. Rein also put the Gears of War development team at around 20 to 30 people, with a development time of two years.

Rein used this as an example of game development that didn’t require “20, 30 million” dollars like other studios have claimed, but Rein doesn’t include the engine development costs in his estimate; since Epic used the Unreal Engine 3 for the game, they basically got that for free. Rein claimed further savings were achieved by outsourcing development. Rein also slid in a slam at other developers claiming that their budget was held tight because “…smart developers don’t go over [deadline].”

Given the uneven feedback that Gears of War has seen, perhaps they might have wanted to go over their deadline for this release. And for all the independent developers out there looking at breaking into the industry, apparently for an A-list title, all that is needed is $10 million, a free next-generation game engine, and a little outsourced development work.