In the past few days, a single slide on a presentation has led to outrage across social media regarding GTA 6. Talk of the game costing more than $70 at launch, $100 in fact, has led to many people expressing their discomfort with such an increase. In contrast, others state they will pay whatever the cost to own and play the next iteration of Grand Theft Auto.
There are two sides to this debate and there’s a lot of context, for both, missing from the headlines or Tweets doing the rounds. I wanted to do a deep dive into why this is even being discussed and look at the pieces of information we have regarding the state of the video games industry and how GTA 6 plays a huge role in its future.
The Claim That Is Causing Worry
Let’s get started with the news story that has kicked up a storm. GameSpot reported on investment analyst Matthew Ball sharing a report called “The State of Video Gaming in 2025“. It is very detailed and offers some fascinating data and viewpoints. For example, GTA VI will be the cheapest Grand Theft Auto game to ever release if it does come out at $70 when you adjust the others to inflation. In comparison, GTA 1 would cost $100 today whereas GTA V is a little over $80 and GTA IV would even be $90.
The controversial part though comes in another slide that claims “some gamemakers hope GTA VI will be priced at $80–100, breaking the $70 barrier and helping $50 titles to move up to $60, $60 to do $70, $70 to $80, etc.” This was echoed by a Baldur’s Gate 3 developer who said “Almost all games should cost more at a base level because the cost of making them (inflation, for one) is outpacing pricing trends. Everyone’s just waiting for GTA6 to do it lol.”
To add to this, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier heard other game publishers are leaving it as long as they can to announce release dates to avoid GTA 6. Also, due to the sheer expectations of GTA VI, playtime of other games is expected to go down. The money and hours spent on GTA VI will take away from other games. It is simply the biggest thing in the industry right now. What it does will change the course of the industry.
Rockstar’s Separation Tactic
Rockstar Games insider Tez2 weighed in on the topic too. In a post on the GTA Forums, Tez was in agreement Take-Two won’t raise the price. He notes that Rockstar will probably sell both GTA VI Story More and GTA Online 2 separately and this will be a first. Red Dead Redemption 2/Red Dead Online and GTA V Story Mode/GTA Online were all separated after launch. He goes onto say “They will have to factor the online standalone price into the total cost. What portion of the base price will be the online’s price? And what would be the story mode upgrade price for those who’ve bought the online standalone?”
Typically, the Online mode will cost less than Story Mode as Rockstar will make plenty of money from microtransactions. If someone can’t justify $70 but a $50 Story Mode is more appealing to them, Rockstar get that extra sale whilst also having the option for them to check Online out later if they pay the difference as an upgrade and vice versa.
I’ve seen people online wonder if anyone actually buy’s GTA Online’s standalone version which is currently only on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. The answer is yes. It actually charts in the top 10 or 20 best selling games across Europe occasionally. It is always less than GTA V’s full package but it is clear people like the lower barrier to entry especially if they’ve already bought GTA V once or twice before. If they don’t care about replaying Story Mode once again when they get their brand new console, they can continue enjoying GTA Online without paying for single player yet again.
$100 Games Are Already Here
Amongst all of the talk about GTA VI costing $100, some people saying “well, people are already paying $100 for 3 early access”. Others think those editions of games are not popular but the unfortunate truth is they are. Let’s take Europe’s best selling game of 2024 as example. In the UK, EA Sports FC 25 had a drop of 4.6% in sales during its first two weeks in comparison to the prior year. Despite that though, the more expensive edition that cost $100 actually sold better compared to the previous year one.
The same thing was repeated in all of Europe. The base game sold 2% less copies in the first two weeks yet the $100 edition sold almost 10% more compared to FC24’s expensive edition. This helps offset a decline in sales. EA won’t care if the game sold less if it makes the same amount of money or more.
Publishers are already selling $100 games with the main selling point to play the game 3 days early. The same, exact game with a few cosmetics usually added in. This is not a new either. Back in 2021, over 1 million people paid for the early access addition of Forza Horizon 5 despite it coming to Xbox Game Pass days later.
Those are just a few examples but if you looked at the best selling chart on PlayStation, Xbox and Steam late last year, the $100 versions of Black Ops 6, Star Wars Outlaws, Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero, Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2 and more were outselling the standard $70 copies.
Early access periods are effectively publishers charging $100 for a game because so many people are willing to pay for it whether you like it or not. Publishers are just all waiting for someone to skip the early access part and charge $100 as standard. Only someone with the popularity and dedicated fanbase like Rockstar Games could pull it off. They’re waiting for Rockstar to launch GTA VI at $100.
Rockstar Do Follow Trends
In reality, I think Rockstar will opt for a $70 base price but have an early access edition for $100. There will be an incredible amount of people who will refuse to wait even 1 single day to get their hands on the game no matter the cost.
Rockstar tend to set trends over following them but they did not shake up the special or collection edition frontier with GTA V or Red Dead Redemption 2. Let’s not forget the company charged $90 for Red Dead 2’s Ultimate Edition which featured an exclusive single player mission and early access to better items in Red Dead Online. This was controversial at the time and they were not the first to do it. Rockstar following the early access trend is not out of the question.
The Big Boss Has His Say
I’ve not seen anyone bring up Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick’s comments on pricing of games when discussing GTA VI costing $100. Back in 2020, he said the company are “definitely announcing pricing on a title by title basis” following Sony and Activision starting the $70 trend. We saw this when they charged $40 for the current gen version of GTA V (with a first month discount) and the GTA Trilogy cost $60 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S at launch. Those were re-releases/remasters though.
He also claimed Take-Two charge “much less” for games than they “believe they’re worth to consumers”. More recently, Zenlick was asked by investors if the increase to $70 had any effect on the performance of a game. The CEO stated “We’re not seeing a pushback on price.”
To take a more in-depth look into his view on pricing, the CEO told an investor in 2023 that: “In terms of pricing for any entertainment property, basically the algorithm is the value of the expected entertainment usage, which is to say that the per-hour value times the number of expected hours, plus the terminal value that’s perceived by the customer in ownership if the title is owned.”
He goes onto say “By that standard, our prices are still very, very low because we offer many hours of engagement. The value of the engagement is very high. So, I think the industry, as a whole, offers a terrific price-to-value opportunity for consumers. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the industry has pricing power or wants to have pricing power. However, there is a great deal of value offered. And look, it’s our strategy here to deliver much more value than what we charge consumers. It’s always been our strategy here. We want to make sure the experience is first-class, and the nature of the experience is not just the quality of what we offer, it’s also what you pay for it, everyone knows that anecdotally.” Agree or disagree, that is the opinion of who runs one of the biggest game publishers in the world.
Rockstar typically set pre-orders to go live alongside the second trailer of their games so that is when we’ll probably find out the price. Any sort of special of collector’s editions are also usually revealed at this time as well. Until then, we are just going to have to wait and see but the feeling is it will cost $70 and hopefully so.
Trump Tariffs
Respected video game analyst Mat Piscatella also weighed in on price increases but for a different reason. In the past day, a new administration has taken office in the USA and looks to be implementing tariffs on imports from various countries. One of those countries is Mexico and many disc copies of games are produced there.
According to Piscatella, not only could this lead to less games getting physical releases but also higher prices. The retail price of disc copies will increase to match the price of digital games more so than usual. Whilst there is no risk of Rockstar not releasing a physical copy of GTA 6, it could bump up the price of a potential collector’s edition for example. You can learn more about how tariffs and other Trump policies could impact GTA VI and Rockstar Games here.
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