We talk about it a lot Grand Theft Auto VI at IICON, the new video game conference for executives and organized in Las Vegas by the Entertainment Software Association. Most of this discussion naturally comes from Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick or other video game executives. But it also comes, apparently, from Bank of America, with a stock analyst at the bank stating, after speaking to IICON attendees, that GTA6 should and will cost $80, so other AAA companies won’t have trouble selling their own games.
This comes from Bank of America stock analyst Omar Dessouky, who said (per In search of Alpha) that his team “heard from participants that the industry, which is seen as struggling, would have difficulty selling $80 games if GTA6 came out at $70. We believe it is in Take-Two’s best interest, as a publisher and partner to many developers, to raise prices for the entire industry.
What Dessouky suggests is that GTA6 will be such a big game that if it came out at $70, every other $70 game would suddenly seem like a really bad deal in comparison, which makes sense if GTA6 is indeed as massive as suggested. Furthermore, in addition to being in the best interests of Take-Two and the entire industry, Dessouky suggests that this will happen because the price of games relative to inflation has fallen over time, making $80 a reasonable ask.
These comments follow those of Zelnick remarks during an on-stage interviewduring which he was asked about the price of the long-awaited sequel. Zelnick reiterated his earlier statements that whatever fees Take-Two charges, GTA6customers should feel like they are getting something that is worth or worth more than that value. In a vacuum, his comments seemed pretty economical, but with Bank of America’s comment, you could almost read it as if he was saying that they’re making a game that’s way better than every other game out there, and therefore customers can pay more for it. “Consumers pay for the value you provide, and our job is to charge much less for the value you provide,” he said. “How you feel about something you buy is at the intersection of the thing itself and what you pay for. Consumers should feel like the thing itself is amazing and that the price they were charged was fair for what they got.”
Cost and effect Grand Theft Auto 6 is an expensive game to make. It’s been in development for almost a decade, worked by thousands of highly skilled workers in multiple studios around the world, and those salaries don’t come cheap. Zelnick also spoke directly with Bloomberg in an interview published today, during which he explained how the high cost of GTA 6 development leads to very high expectations for the next release. Some analysts have predicted that the game sell around 25 million copies from the first day alone. Zelnick suggests Bloomberg that a figure of ten million copies sold on day one would actually be a disaster, even though such a sales figure would be unfathomable to virtually anyone else.
“Development costs have continued to rise,” he said. “And we’re really aiming to deliver the highest quality entertainment on Earth. And that’s expensive. And the influence of AI is not resisting. We haven’t seen those costs come down yet. Maybe we will. Maybe we won’t.”
And yet, once again Bloomberg, Grand Theft Auto 6 is taking another big risk by not launching on PC: it will only come to PlayStation and Xbox upon release, although it should eventually come to PC like Rockstar’s previous releases. “Rockstar always starts on console because I think when it comes to a release like that, you’re judged based on the core,” Zelnick said. “It’s like really serving the core consumer. If your core consumer isn’t there, if they’re not served first and best, you’re kind of not reaching your other consumers.”
In light of all this, yes, it wouldn’t be shocking if Take-Two charged $10 more per person, or even more, for what is sure to be one of the most expensive (to make) games of all time. We can only continue to speculate wildly about the price until it’s officially revealed, which I hope will happen this summer when the game releases. the marketing blitz officially begins before its launch on November 19.
