GTA 6 is set to release in less than a month on November 19. And although the hype is international, it’s a recent study from Uswitch which estimates the number of employees on sick leave, the day of the game release.
On a sample of 1000 British employees selected by their affinity to video games, Uswitch estimates the shock number of 2.56 millions of employees absent at their work the 19 november 2026.
On these british workers, 26% consider that they will talk about GTA 6 between colleagues the day of the release. 21% expect to be tired the day that follows the release (due to the fact of having play until late). 17% could shift their schedules and 16% anticipate a drop of productivity.
Finally, it’s 17% who want to take a paid day off and 14% an unpaid leave. 9% declare considering a sick leave while they would not be sick. These astronomical numbers demonstrate the cultural influence of the game. GTA now exceeds the sphere of video games : the economic impact is colossal.
What size will be the losses
Rockstar Games play a major role in the economic representation of the United Kingdom at the international level (Rockstar Games being a British company). It’s a huge blow that it seems to strike it with the influence that it will carry on the employees.
Considering nearly 34 500 000 of employees in the UK, it would be around 1 680 000 who would plan to take a paid leave. While almost 890 000 fake sick leaves would be taken. That is a little more than 13 400 000 hours of works lost for a single day in the UK. It’s 403 000 000 pounds of expected losses by the study on the nearly 4 billions generated per day.
Obviously, this study was realized on a relatively basic sample in number. It can as much overestimate than underestimate the numbers but without too much gaps with reality. One must clearly understand that this logic does not apply essentially to the United Kingdom, but to most of western countries where GTA 6 is there too a major cultural event. Notably in the United States where we had already shared a similar study which raised the losses to a little more than 1 000 000 000 of american dollars.
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