The Most Expensive Browser Games Ever Made

Browser games have a reputation for being cheap to make. Most are. But a handful of HTML5 and web-distributed games have shipped with budgets that rival mid-tier mobile or console releases — production values, marketing campaigns, licensed soundtracks, and the engineering bills that come with them. This is the most expensive browser games ever made, ordered by what we can reasonably estimate. Important caveat up front: clean budget data for most browser games does not exist, because studios rarely disclose it. Where we make estimates, we’ll say so.

A note on the budget data

Browser games rarely get treated like AAA console games at financial-disclosure time. Studios building web titles tend to publish them under broad portfolio numbers, fold them into larger marketing budgets, or never report them at all. Almost every figure in this article is an estimate based on production scope, studio overhead, and public commentary. Where a number is firm, we’ll call it out; where it’s not, treat it as a range.

This is the honest tradeoff for writing about browser game budgets: precision isn’t possible. Reading the production credits, the asset quality, and the marketing footprint gives us a relative ranking, not a balance sheet.

1. EVE Online’s web companion projects (CCP Games)

EVE Online itself is a desktop MMO, but CCP Games has shipped several browser-based companion products — the Crucible expansion website, the EVE web portal for character management, and short-form web-distributed experiences tied to specific events. Combined investment in EVE’s web-facing presence over the years runs into the millions, primarily on engineering, security (eve.online accounts hold real player value), and the integration with the main game’s database.

None of these are standalone web games in the strict sense, but they’re some of the most expensive browser-distributed gaming experiences if you count the underlying infrastructure. CCP has not disclosed specific figures.

2. The Polytopia web port (Midjiwan)

Polytopia started as a mobile strategy game in 2016 and gradually expanded to Steam and a browser-playable version. The web port involved significant engineering work to translate the mobile codebase to a performant HTML5 build. Midjiwan is a small studio (under 30 people), but the web port’s development cost was a multi-month engineering effort. Exact figures are not disclosed; estimates from similar mobile-to-web ports put the bill in the high six figures.

The web version is free with optional in-app purchases mirroring the mobile structure.

3. Big Boss Alien / Boss Alien HTML5 titles

Boss Alien (now part of NaturalMotion / Take-Two) built several HTML5-distributed games before pivoting fully to mobile. Their CSR Classics web title and various promotional HTML5 builds carried production values closer to mobile-game standards — full 3D rendering in WebGL, branded asset work, voiceover. Boss Alien has not disclosed budgets, but the studio’s per-project costs in the mid-2010s were reported in the low millions for their mobile titles, and the web projects likely sat at the lower end of that range.

4. Branded HTML5 advergaming (various agencies)

The most expensive browser games per dollar of fun are often advergames — short HTML5 titles built for brand campaigns. Coca-Cola, Nike, McDonald’s, Honda, and various automotive brands have each commissioned HTML5 web games as marketing campaigns. Production budgets for these run from $50,000 for a basic build to several hundred thousand dollars for full-scope productions with licensed music and motion-capture animation.

The unusual thing about advergames is that the marketing budget around them often exceeds the development budget by 10x. A million-dollar promotional campaign might have a $100,000 game at its center.

5. Old Republic / SWTOR’s browser companion (BioWare / EA)

Star Wars: The Old Republic launched in 2011 with a browser-based “Old Republic Holonet” companion that let players manage characters and view in-game data through a website. The development of the companion site, combined with the secure account API it relied on, was a multi-million dollar engineering effort folded into the broader SWTOR launch. It’s not a game in the traditional sense, but it’s one of the more expensive browser-game-adjacent products ever shipped.

6. The original Skyforge browser hub (Allods Team)

Skyforge launched as a desktop MMO in 2015 with a browser hub for character builds, market interactions, and asset management. The hub was a separate engineering project from the main game and reportedly carried a six-figure development cost. Closed in subsequent years as the game’s player base shrank.

7. Funorb / Jagex’s browser games (RuneScape’s parent)

Jagex, the studio behind RuneScape, launched Funorb in 2008 as a browser-game portal with original IP — Steel Sentinels, Arcanists, and several other 2D and 3D titles. Funorb’s combined development budget was reported in industry interviews as several million dollars over the platform’s life, primarily engineering and asset production. The platform shut down in 2018 due to declining player interest.

Funorb is one of the cleaner examples of “expensive browser games” because the development was sustained over a decade and the games shipped with genuine production polish.

8. Krunker.io’s evolution (Yendis Entertainment)

Krunker started small in 2018 and grew into one of the most-played browser shooters. Yendis Entertainment has poured engineering and design resources into the game continuously since launch, and the cumulative development spend over six-plus years runs into the millions. The studio has not disclosed figures, but Krunker is one of the rare browser games whose ongoing development cost rivals a small console studio’s.

9. RuneScape’s browser version (Jagex)

RuneScape ran in the browser as a Java applet from 2001 until the applet death between 2015 and 2018. The development of the browser version was part of RuneScape’s overall engineering investment, which by 2018 was reportedly over $100 million across the game’s full lifecycle. Calling RuneScape a “browser game” stretches the definition — it’s a full MMO that happened to run in a browser — but its lifetime investment dwarfs every other entry on this list.

10. Magic: The Gathering Arena’s web client (Wizards of the Coast)

MTG Arena is primarily a downloadable client, but the web companion (statistics, deck builder, store) has received significant engineering investment over its multi-year development. Wizards of the Coast doesn’t disclose web-companion budgets specifically, but combined with the Arena client’s reported $20+ million development cost, the web component is part of a heavily invested ecosystem.

Why these examples are weird

Most “expensive browser games” turn out to be either web companions to larger desktop or mobile games, advergaming campaigns where the marketing dwarfs the build, or long-running browser games whose cumulative cost over time adds up. The pure case — a single-shot, original browser game with a multi-million dollar budget — barely exists. The economics don’t support it. Browser games generally monetize through ads or microtransactions, and neither model sustains the budget level that would put a game on the “expensive AAA” tier.

The most successful browser games (Wordle, Slither.io, Krunker, Cookie Clicker) were built cheap and grew big. The pattern of high-budget browser-only games failing — Funorb, OnLive’s browser plays, various early HTML5 experiments — has shaped the industry’s risk appetite.

What the data we have suggests

If we restrict the conversation to standalone browser-only games (excluding companions and MMOs that happen to run in browser), the all-time top-budget figures are probably in the low millions of dollars for a single game. The Funorb portfolio is a strong example. The big mobile-to-web ports (Polytopia, the Boss Alien titles) sit slightly lower.

By contrast, a mid-tier indie console game routinely costs $5-10 million to develop. The browser game industry’s economics simply don’t support that budget for a single-shot title.

Frequently asked questions

What is the most expensive browser game ever made?

If we count cumulative development over a game’s full life, RuneScape’s browser-distributed era likely tops the list with tens of millions invested in engineering. For single-shot browser games, low-millions-of-dollars budgets are the top end, and most aren’t disclosed publicly.

Do studios disclose browser game budgets?

Almost never. Browser games are usually published as part of a portfolio or marketing campaign with combined budget reporting. Specific per-game figures are rare in public disclosures.

Why are browser games usually cheap to make?

The monetization options (ads, microtransactions, occasional one-time purchases) typically generate revenue at scales that don’t justify large budgets. The economics drive most developers to ship lean and iterate.

What about advergaming budgets?

Advergames can be expensive (hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single build), but the cost goes mostly to brand integration and licensed assets, not gameplay innovation. The marketing budget around the game often dwarfs the game itself.

Could a multi-million dollar browser game make sense today?

Possibly, if it’s monetized through a paid app store wrapper or a subscription model rather than ads. The economics still favor smaller, cheaper, more iterative releases. The industry’s pattern of high-budget browser failures has made publishers cautious.

The takeaway

The “most expensive browser games ever made” is a list of asterisks and caveats, because the data isn’t public and the economics don’t favor big spends in the browser. The exceptions (RuneScape, EVE’s web companion, Funorb) are mostly either MMO-adjacent or long-running portfolios. Single-shot, original browser games tend to ship lean. For an example of a small open-source browser game that has reached a massive audience without a budget at all, try the Chrome Dino game on this site — written by a single Google designer in 2014 and still running on its original codebase.