Final Fantasy VII cost a record-breaking forty-five million dollars to develop in 1997, making it one of the most expensive entertainment products ever created at the time.

A closer look

Final Fantasy VII cost a record-breaking forty-five million dollars to develop in 1997, making it one of the most expensive entertainment products ever created at the time. Square took a massive gamble by abandoning Nintendo for the Sony PlayStation simply because the massive pre-rendered cutscenes required the storage capacity of three CD-ROMs. They basically banked the entire future of their company on a depressing, cyberpunk story about eco-terrorists fighting a mega-corporation that is draining the planet's life force. It is incredibly ironic that millions of young gamers learned their first lessons about the horrors of unchecked late-stage capitalism from a blockbuster product designed by a massive corporation solely to sell plastic consoles!