Whenever the subject of ballooned budgets enters into the picture, one can't help but draw up a comparison to Rockstar Games, the edgy developer for some of the most well known and recognized brands in gaming. Well, we're talking about ballooned budgets today so you can chalk one up for Rockstar Games once again.In an interview with Scottish media outlet, The Scotsman , some of Scotland's creative heads working within the media industry chimed in on the success (and potential success) of the series. One of the things worth noting is that, according to the Scotsman, Rockstar has spent £170 million, roughly $265 million in U.S., dollars, to develop, produce and marketwith a staff of over 300 designers, artists, programmers, mappers and modelers. That's about equivalent to a moderately budgeted Hollywood blockbuster.This production ranks up there with other titles like Sega's, which cost $100 million to produce, as well as the original, which also cost just over $100 million to develop and market. The budget fordwarfs those previously mentioned titles by a large margin and actually ranks up there with EA's, which is said to have a budget of $200 million . However, there were some discrepancies involving, given that a large portion of that was believed to go toward voice acting and licensing fees to LucasArts, as hinted at by Activision Blizzard's CEO, Bobby Kotick. Regardless of comparisons, $265 million is a heck of a lot of money. Just for reference,cost $10 million to produce; Naughty Dog'scost about $25 million to produce and Quantic Dream'scost $20 million to produce and another $20 million to market, bringing the total budget to $40 million Despite having one of the most bloated budgets in video game history, Rockstar and parent company Take-Two Interactive are confident that the game will sell like crazy.is already poised to surpass sales of given its pre-order numbers alone , and according to the Scotsman article, Rockstar isn't too worried about costs since the newest game in theseries is poised to make $1 billion before the year is out, with an estimate of more than 25 million SKUs to be shipped to retailers around the world.This is definitely risky business here, butis arguably one of the most recognized brands in media entertainment today. In fact, you might be hard pressed to find anyone who watches television, streams content or reads the news and hasn't heard of. So the brand is certainly big enough to command $1 billion dollars out of the gate, the same as Call of Duty each and every year is set for release on September 17th next week for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It looks likeis going to have a hard road to run toward a Game of the Year Award.