By that metric there were maybe two AAA PC games in all of 1998.

There were a lot fewer, certainly. FF7 was the heavyweight. Zelda: Ocarina, MGS, and StarCraft were in the running. Shenmu (produced a year later) had a budget north of $47M (the high fluctuation in Yen value making this a hard calculation).

But you wouldn’t see truly big budget gaming until GTA4 crested the nine digit mark.

Bordering on eight digits in 2000 was not a small game at all.

The difference between $7M and $47M is a buncha lotta money.