With the GTA VI release date approaching, we now have at least some reassurance on how much it’s going to cost – kind of.
Amid speculation that the world’s most long-awaited game could cost as much as $150, Take-Two Interactive’s CEO Strauss Zelnick appears to have provided some hope for gamers. However, the way that’s being reported raises a question itself. How much should Grand Theft Auto 6 cost?
GTA VI price: what did Strauss actually say?
The headlines about Zelnick’s brief possible allusion to the GTA VI price have variously described fans as being both ‘united’ and ‘divided’ over the news. So which is it?
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The comment came in an interview by Christopher Dring for The Game Business. The CEO of publisher Take-Two Interactive didn’t specify what the GTA VI price will be. In fact, he wasn’t even talking specifically about Grand Theft Auto. But his comments are widely being interpreted as a hint that the game’s price will be $70 or $80. That would be in line with recent AAA games – or at least in line with Switch 2 game prices.
The relevant part of the conversation was actually focused on the question of putting advertising in games. Strauss said: “We have some limited advertising inside games like NBA 2K because that, you know, it fits within the vernacular. You want to see advertising in an arena, in a stadium, because you would if you were there in real life. It’s very difficult for me to believe that we would want to have interstitial advertising in a game that someone paid 70 or 80 bucks for would seem unfair.”
That’s not exactly the price confirmation that some reports claiming. It seems unlikely that Strauss would throw that figure out there if he knows that GTA VI will retail at $150, but the phrase ‘difficult for me to believe’ also highlights a certain amount of independence for Rockstar.
Even so, the comment is still causing debate. Many people seem relieved and argue that $80 or even more would be a fair price for such an expansive game. “They can charge whatever figure they arrive at. If you can’t afford $20-30 more for a game you’ve been waiting years for, I don’t know what to tell you other than plan better or find a free hobby instead,” one person wrote on X.
Over on Reddit, someone’s done the maths and calculated that Legend of Zelda II, which cost $49.99 in 1986, would cost $150 today if adjusted for inflation.
“Waiting for hordes of people to say a video game should never cost that much, disregarding the fact that this might end up being the best value for money entertainment product as far as $ to Hours of content ratio that we’ll ever possibly see,” one person wrote on the same thread.
“Video games have always been expensive. In raw purchasing power, they’ve virtually always been about as expensive as they are now– or more expensive,” someone else reckons.
However, others fear that while $80 might be a fair price for GTA 6, “other game companies will get a free pass to increase their pricing to $80 too. And maybe, their game won’t deserve that”. What do you think? What would be a fair price for GTA VI when it’s released on 19 November?
