Larian head of publishing Michael Douse warned that recreation firms 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 worth of at the very least $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 one in all a number of “potential new ‘progress engines’,” alongside issues like user-generated content material, the discharge of the Swap 2, and the expansion of “non-core” markets.
“In 2025, GTA 6’s impression on {industry} playtime and spend will probably be combined because it launches console-only and (severely) cannibalizes hours/spend on different titles,” Ball wrote. “However some gamemakers hope GTA 6 will probably 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 so forth.”
Ball mentioned video games “have by no means been decrease in actual phrases than they’re as we speak,” which he described as “a tricky 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 12 months for many years—and this hurts builders of each dimension and finances,” he wrote. “In actual phrases, a $70 GTA 6 can be the cheapest-ever GTA—30% lower than its authentic 2D entries, and 16-24% lower than GTA 4 and GTA 5.”
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“You’re not purported to say this out loud!!!!” Douse wrote on X (through GamesRadar) in response to a VGC story about Ball’s report.
“A great 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. However, the accountability for a recreation developer is to be sure that the sport they present lives as much as that promise, and that funding from the participant.”
It’s, as Ball mentioned, a tricky nut to crack. Growth prices of big-budget video games have skyrocketed, whereas buy costs have remained comparatively secure—and on the PC facet of issues particularly, 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 chance of pushing aside patrons who’re content material to attend for a sale fairly than pouncing on a brand new recreation on launch day.
Which is not to say it is an insurmountable downside—Activision turned the dial somewhat bit in 2022 with Fashionable Warfare 2, and if there’s any upcoming recreation that is going to have the ability to get away with one other significant worth hike, it is Grand Theft Auto 6—however it is going to undoubtedly be a subject of a lot controversy and grousing when it occurs.
Additionally a query is whether or not an $80 (or $100) GTA 6 would even have that type of across-the-board impression on industry-wide pricing, some extent Douse touched on in reply to customers who identified that folks may be keen to shell out that type of money for a brand new Grand Theft Auto, however not a lot else.
“We’re at an odd second the place retail shouldn’t be 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 purpose 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 quite a lot 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 rising the worth level of recent video games at launch is not going to deal with that by itself. However whether or not it is GTA 6, The Elder Scrolls 6, or no matter it’s that Larian is cooking up subsequent, it’ll 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 solely unjustified.
Grand Theft Auto 6, for the report, nonetheless hasn’t been introduced for PC—as Ball wrote, I totally count on will probably be a console-only launch when it comes out, and we’ll get ours later.
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