this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2025
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It's that something you have a source on, or do you just have a feeling about it?
Gpt 4 had a training cost of $78 million. Gta5 cost $300 million. 4000 developers each with the latest GPU burning hundreds of watts per employee to create the assets. A rough estimate of 750watt pc, 4,000 developers, 8 hour a day, 300 days a year, 5 years = 36 giga watt-hours.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPT-4
https://gamerant.com/rockstar-games-with-longest-development-cycles-ranked/ https://www.tweaktown.com/news/88292/over-6-000-people-worked-on-grand-theft-auto/index.html https://www.sportskeeda.com/gta/how-long-take-make-gta-5-a-brief-history-game-s-developmental-cycle
Off topic: while trying to find my post where I did the math I discovered that Blue Morpho is the name of an AI company. God damn it. AI ruined my Venture Bros reference.
Except their GPUs wouldn't be at 100% power all the time. Most of that time will be with programming, texture artistry, planning mechanics etc. I have a feeling that "back of the napkin" calculation is incredibly inaccurate.
A gaming PC uses more than 750 watts. Plus there's AC cooling for that which doubles the total power usage. So 750 watts includes not using the CPU all the time. Then there's the testers on the development team which greatly outnumber the coders. Testers are using the GPU the entire time they're working.
Lastly the cost comparison of the Rockstar developing GTA5 vs OpenAI training ChatGPT includes all the energy costs because they had to pay for everything. OpenAI is 2k developers compared to Rockstar 4k so it's not just salaries that make up the difference.
No, a gaming pc 'can' use 750 watts. But it won't be using 750 watts 100% of the time.
Power supplies only draw what they need, not their full rated capacity.
GPU's also downclock and lower their power draw when they aren't being stressed to their limits.
Lunch breaks cut 30-60 minutes out of those 8 hours.
And that article estimated 5000 employees internationally, which includes management, marketing, programmers, visual artists, musicians, sound engineers, voice actors, qa, translators, external consultants/contractors, and many more.
These are all people who have helped make the game at some point, and does not mean these people were in-office or employed for the entire development process.
Very few of those roles require top-end machines, and even fewer require their systems to be running at full speed 100% of the time.
Even if we ignore that that gaming companies have a larger energy footprint, it's still less energy. Let's assume its a regular corporation with only accountants and laptops:
6k employees 20 kwatt hours per square foot https://esource.bizenergyadvisor.com/article/large-offices 150 square feet per employee https://unspot.com/blog/how-much-office-space-do-we-need-per-employee/#%3A%7E%3Atext=The+needed+workspace+may+vary+in+accordance
18,000,000,000 watt hours
vs
10,000,000,000 watt hours for ChatGPT training
https://www.washington.edu/news/2023/07/27/how-much-energy-does-chatgpt-use/
Ignoring the shitty quick maths. Those are energy costs of employing people. Those programmers and artists won't stop needing AC and a computer if you get rid of the videogame industry, they'll move to another industry with AC and computers.
Yeah, but Game development does use more energy than a typical office worker. However even treating it as a regular office worker, the training costs are equivalent to 3k office workers but the results of the training are used by far more than 3k. So the energy use of the training is divided by millions of users.
So you're saying that GTA VI is only going to be used by the developers?
And how does tech companies putting AI results on every interaction of mine count as a user? I never read their bullshit, yet it's all over my screen, wasting both insane amounts of energy and valuable screen space.
I'm claiming that chat chatGPT is used by more than gamers.
I'm skeptical that those 4k developers are using their entire GPU for 8 hours a day. I would be surprised if even 10% of the ~~brain~~ GPU was being used. Though there are CI servers running ontop of that, but typically much fewer than there are developers. I would estimate 5 GWh as a liberal upper bound.
If you scroll further down, I did the math assuming that it wasn't even a gaming company and got 18 GWh.