The Daily Populous Monday January 27th, 2025 evening edition
Authored by ign.com and submitted by alex040512

A few years ago, most big AAA games cost $60. Then came the price hikes, with game after game launching at $70. Now this week, we’re hearing increasing discussion of 2025’s most anticipated game, Grand Theft Auto 6, potentially costing not $70, not $80, or even $90…but $100.

The suggestion of a $100 GTA 6 technically comes from Epyllion CEO and analyst Matthew Ball in a lengthy presentation on the state of gaming in 2025 published last week. Near the end of the presentation , Ball says that “some gamemakers hope GTA 6 will be priced at $80 to $100, breaking the $70 barrier and helping $50 titles to move up to $60, $60 to do $70, $70 to $80 etc."

“Packaged game prices have never been lower in real terms than they are today — even though budgets are at all-time highs and player growth is stalled,” Ball writes. “GTA 6 could re-establish packed video game prices after decades of deflation despite rampant cost growth.”

Ball’s report doesn’t make the direct claim that GTA 6 will cost $100, only that some game makers are hoping it will cost somewhere around that much. However, the mere suggestion sparked significant discussion on social media as to whether or not it was possible or advisable for GTA 6 to cost that much, and whether doing so would really help the industry…or GTA for that matter. So I reached out to some other analysts for their takes on the notion. And they had…thoughts.

Sure, it could, says Mat Piscatella, analyst at Circana. Anything’s possible, especially for a game as anticipated as GTA 6. But is it a likely, or reasonable outcome? “Probably not.”

“There's just no need,” he wrote in a post on Bluesky . “You want to make the funnel as wide as possible, while also optimizing launch $. You don't do this [by] making the base price of a game so high that the funnel narrows. It just makes no sense. At all.”

Joost van Dreunen, NYU Stern professor and author of the SuperJoost newsletter, agreed that a price increase would be a “mistake” for Take-Two and Rockstar, noting that it was unlikely to deviate from what made GTA 5 work out so well for them:

“Their success with GTA 5 came partly from their pricing strategy — launching at a standard price point late in the console cycle, then selling another copy to those same players when they upgraded to new consoles,” he said. “They'll likely stick to this proven approach, though they'll definitely offer premium editions with extras at higher price points.”

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I spoke to five different analysts, all of whom largely agreed that GTA 6 wasn’t going to be priced higher than the usual $70…for the base game, at least. Because both Piscatella and MIDiA’s Rhys Elliott pointed out a critical loophole here: Publishers already are charging $100 for games.

“Most huge AAA games already charge $100 (sometimes more) in the first 3-7 days before launch, but they call it ‘early access’ and slap ‘collector's edition’ in the name,” he said. “Publishers have hijacked collector’s editions as a way to charge more for ‘early access’ – AKA delayed access for those consumers unwilling to pay the markup.”

Elliott named a number of publishers using this strategy already, such as WB Games (Hogwarts Legacy), Xbox (Starfield), EA (EA Sports FC 25), and Ubisoft (Star Wars: Outlaws).

But he added that the idea of charging $100 for the “base game” without these extra perks would be “a bridge too far,” even in the case of GTA.

“They’d find success either way,” he said. “GTA 6 is going to be a cultural phenomenon and could bear a $100 price point, but player backlash would be significant, and that would be a short-term gain at a long-term cost. Maximizing day-one premium revenues and giving mass consumers sticker shock is not the play here, especially in today’s economy. And while many gamers will play through GTA 6’s single-player, online is where the engagement – and recurring revenue spend – happens. It’s where the real revenue comes in. Rockstar would not want to limit its total addressable market there.

“One of the major challenges for GTA 6 is convincing players to jump ship from GTA 5’s online component, so creating a needlessly higher switching cost would not be wise here.”

Elliott brings up a critical point here: GTA 5 was a massively successful game, but the thing that really gave it staying power to sell five million copies a quarter for a decade was its online multiplayer playground, GTA Online. Which begs the question: even if GTA 6 is priced at $70, what will its version of GTA Online cost? Will Rockstar and Take-Two really keep it available at no additional cost, as before?

James McWhirter, senior games analyst at Omdia, thinks so.

“GTA Online was key to GTA 5’s ongoing success, driving premium sales and subscription service licensing; a precedent Take-Two is unlikely to disrupt with GTA 6's launch,” he said. “Alternative pricing schemes will likely emerge only after establishing a strong player base for the next-gen GTA Online, which will anchor long-term engagement. The real challenge lies in managing continuity between two live-service GTA Online games. Depending on how Take-Two handles this transition, alternative business models could emerge sooner or later.”

Grand Theft Auto 6 Trailer 1 Stills 30 Images

Elliott largely agrees that the same model as before is most likely, pointing out that both GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 didn’t see the launch of their online modes until shortly after the release of the main game. But he also sees the potential for other possibilities:

“While I think we will see something similar for GTA 6 and its online component, I can also see a world where Rockstar launches them completely separately,” he said. “If they did this, they would probably add some online perks into the ‘single-player version’ to nudge players to play online, too. Another possibility is having the core story play out in GTA 6, then adding subsequent story content into the online mode – best of both worlds, perhaps.

“As for subscriptions, Rockstar will likely continue what it set out with GTA+, perhaps adding a battle pass to complement as well.”

I’ve covered Take-Two’s earnings calls for several years running now, and inevitably every single quarter in my memory, they’ve managed to sell five million more copies of GTA 5 while making piles of money off GTA Online as well despite the game being over a decade old now. It’s difficult to imagine any other game ever matching or exceeding that level of success.

But if any game can, it’s GTA 6, seemingly without the need to upset its players by hiking up base game prices. Assuming GTA 6’s launch cost and plan are roughly the same as GTA 5’s, van Dreunen concluded his response to me with a prediction. It’s one he’s made before back in December of 2023 , but which he stands by now as well: GTA 6 can and will match or exceed the success of GTA 5.

“When GTA 5 launched in 2013, about 29% of console gamers (35 million) purchased a copy,” he said. “Assuming a similar adoption rate among an anticipated 130 million console install base in 2025, GTA 6 could sell around 38 million copies in its first twelve months. At an average selling price of $70, this would generate approximately $2.7 billion through both digital and physical channels, aligning with Take-Two's projected earnings increase for 2025.”

If gamemakers are hoping and praying for a $100 GTA or even an $80 one, it sounds like they may have to keep dreaming after all.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

CuriousRexus on January 27th, 2025 at 11:02 UTC »

They will just fuel illegal downloads again. Fire up the Torrent-trackers.

OMEGACY on January 27th, 2025 at 10:53 UTC »

The baseline game will be 70$. But with how games are released nowadays there's going to be like 5 versions of the damn thing and it won't surprise me to see a 200$ version with a bunch of gta online bonuses and shark cards bundle. I know the argument is over the base version being 100$ but they won't do that. I would make the argument though that we're already seeing games being sold for 100 or more because they're including expansion passes or bonus clothing or other collectibles. They've been doing it for years already.

silveira1995 on January 27th, 2025 at 10:46 UTC »

This would fuck up the industry because it would still sell like hot bread and it would incentivize other companies to try it, however THE ONLY GAME that can pull 100$ off is gta, only one. Not even rdr can do it. We'd have a lot of disapointed publishers.