Larian head of publishing Michael Douse warned that sport corporations are saying the quiet half out loud after {industry} analyst Michael Ball wrote that a few of them are hoping Grand Theft Auto 6 will launch with a value of no less than $80, and presumably as excessive as $100.
The comment got here in Ball’s “State of Videogaming in 2025” report, which lists Grand Theft Auto 6 as certainly one of a number of “potential new ‘progress engines’,” alongside issues like user-generated content material, the discharge of the Switch 2, and the expansion of “non-core” markets.
“In 2025, GTA 6’s impression on {industry} playtime and spend will likely be combined because it launches console-only and (severely) cannibalizes hours/spend on different titles,” Ball wrote. “But some gamemakers hope GTA 6 will likely be priced at $80—$100, breaking the $70 barrier and serving to $50 titles to maneuver as much as $60, $60 to $70, $70 to $80, and many others.”
Ball mentioned video games “have by no means been decrease in actual phrases than they’re at the moment,” which he described as “a troublesome downside to begin and worsened by stalled participant progress and rising prices” of growth.
“No different main leisure kinds have seen their merchandise grow to be price much less practically each single yr for many years—and this hurts builders of each measurement and funds,” he wrote. “In actual phrases, a $70 GTA 6 could be the cheapest-ever GTA—30% lower than its authentic 2D entries, and 16-24% lower than GTA 4 and GTA 5.”
Image 1 of 2
“You’re not presupposed to say this out loud!!!!” Douse wrote on X (by way of GamesRadar) in response to a VGC story about Ball’s report.
“A very good firm raises salaries according to inflation in order that their employees don’t die or one thing, however video games costs haven’t risen with inflation,” he continued. “This isn’t the rationale the {industry} is within the shit for now, however it’s an uncomfortable reality. On the opposite hand, the accountability for a sport developer is to make it possible for the sport they present lives as much as that promise, and that funding from the participant.”
It is, as Ball mentioned, a troublesome nut to crack. Development prices of big-budget video games have skyrocketed, whereas buy costs have remained comparatively secure—and on the PC facet of issues specifically, Steam gross sales and Epic freebies have conditioned us to count on our video games to be low-cost. That makes nudging across-the-board costs increased a difficult proposition, as publishers run the danger of laying aside patrons who’re content material to attend for a sale fairly than pouncing on a brand new sport on launch day.
Which is not to say it is an insurmountable downside—Activision turned the dial a bit of bit in 2022 with Modern Warfare 2, and if there’s any upcoming sport that is going to have the ability to get away with one other significant value hike, it is Grand Theft Auto 6—however it should undoubtedly be a subject of a lot controversy and grousing when it occurs.
Also a query is whether or not an $80 (or $100) GTA 6 would even have that kind of across-the-board impression on industry-wide pricing, some extent Douse touched on in reply to customers who identified that folks may be prepared to shell out that type of money for a brand new Grand Theft Auto, however not a lot else.
“We are at an odd second the place retail is just not defining output and content material, however now no person is,” Douse wrote. “There’s no customary. It’s troublesome to parse. It’s ’the wild west’. The level is that maybe Rockstar have sufficient clout to put down the brand new legislation. And with that others will sink or swim?”
There’s already loads of sinking happening within the videogame {industry}, as witnessed within the layoffs and closures which have plagued studios over the previous two years and counting, and growing the worth level of recent video games at launch is not going to deal with that by itself. But whether or not it is GTA 6, The Elder Scrolls 6, or no matter it’s that Larian is cooking up subsequent, it’s going to occur ultimately—and as a lot because it sucks to pay extra, as somebody who remembers forking over $60 for System Shock 2 in 1999 (Canadian, sure, however the level holds), I do not suppose it’s going to be completely unjustified.
Grand Theft Auto 6, for the document, nonetheless hasn’t been introduced for PC—as Ball wrote, I absolutely count on will probably be a console-only launch when it comes out, and we’ll get ours later.
