Then imagine marketing submitted their budget independently. Their proposal included some high cost, unique advertising campaigns and totaled $150m.
Both got approved.
In most circumstances, budget is a finite resource that people fight for, and one person getting more means someone else getting less. But for a very successful company releasing pretty much the world's most successful game, maybe they just gave everyone what they wanted/needed and marketing's costs somehow were legitimately higher.
I agree it seems weird to have the split like that, but not all development efforts are cash deprived, and if it isn't then more money won't help much.
I'm not singling out Rockstar here, ALL huge companies have this kind of ridiculous split between development and marketing in today's world. It's just the sad reality of how business is done.
Let's just look at it logically; the budget dedicated to development determines the quality and quantity of what can be created. If you have a finite pool and < 50% is going to development and > 50% is going to marketing then logically you're going to get a lesser product than if you put say, 75% in development and 25% in marketing.
So yeah, that's sad. You don't even need to get into who works harder, etc.