Analyst claims the games industry “hopes” GTA VI will cost up to $100, raising average prices

A sizzling potato: In information that can seemingly enhance the anger many individuals really feel towards some parts of the gaming business, an analyst’s report claims that builders and publishers “hope” that Grand Theft Auto VI might price as a lot as $100 when it arrives. Such a transfer might embolden different firms to beginning charging extra for his or her video games, pushing up common promoting costs to offset rising growth prices.

Matthew Ball of Epyllion’s State of Video Gaming in 2025 report has a big deal with what is going to undoubtedly be the largest launch of the yr, GTA VI – regardless of there nonetheless being no official PC model.

The subsequent instalment within the GTA sequence is anticipated to interrupt loads of data, together with being the most costly sport ever made. There aren’t any official figures, however estimates vary someplace between the excessive a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands to as excessive as $2 billion. For context, Name of Obligation: Black Ops Chilly Struggle’s development costs have been $700 million. Whereas that is lower than 2020’s Genshin Impression, which is formally the most costly sport ever at $900 million, that features $200 million added yearly for ongoing prices – Genshin Impression’s preliminary prices have been simply $100 million.

Rockstar and Take-Two might use GTA VI’s monumental growth prices as justification to cost the sport between $80 and $100. Ball mentioned such a transfer “might re-establish packed online game costs after a long time of deflation regardless of rampant price development.”

It has been 5 years because the first main sport to hold a $70 price tag, NBA 2K21, launched, signalling the start of the tip for the usual $60 AAA value that had been round because the launch of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 period within the mid-2000s. It is nonetheless some extent of competition in the present day, particularly when it is slapped on a sport that is not notably effectively acquired, similar to Skull and Bones.

Ball notes that GTA VI breaking the $70 barrier and probably going all the way in which to $100 might have a trickledown impact through which all firms enhance their video games’ promoting value by $10, with $80 turning into the brand new customary for AAA titles.

$100 for a sport brings to thoughts the Neo Geo, the Nineteen Nineties console for which video games retailed for as much as $100 to $300 as a result of machine’s arcade-quality elements and enormous cartridges containing substantial reminiscence for the time.

Nevertheless, Ball factors out that $70 GTA VI can be the “least expensive” GTA sport ever launched in actual phrases (taking inflation under consideration). In actual phrases, $91 can be common, although players are unlikely to understand his perspective.

“Packaged sport costs have by no means been decrease in actual phrases than they’re in the present day – though budgets are at all-time highs and participant development is stalled,” Ball mentioned. “GTA VI might re-establish packed online game costs after a long time of deflation regardless of rampant price development.”

This is not the primary time we have heard claims of GTA VI carrying an enormous retail value. There have been rumors in September that it might price $150. That appears extraordinarily unlikely, except it is for a special-edition model of some variety.

A current report discovered that whereas graphical constancy contributes to inflated budgets and prolonged growth timelines, different elements, together with worker wages, large open worlds, and non-gaming associated points, play important roles in pushing up sport growth prices.