There’s a lot of talk about Grand Theft Auto VI at IICON, the new executive-focused video game conference in Las Vegas being put on by the Entertainment Software Association. Most of that talk is understandably coming from Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, or from other gaming executives. But it’s also coming from, apparently, Bank of America, with a stock analyst for the bank declaring, after speaking to attendees at IICON, that GTA 6 should and will cost $80, so that other AAA companies don’t have trouble selling their own games.
This comes from Bank of America stock analyst Omar Dessouky, who said (per Seeking Alpha) that his team “heard from attendees that the industry, which is perceived as struggling, would have difficulty selling games for $80 if GTA 6 came out at $70. We think it’s in Take-Two’s self-interest, as a publisher and partner to many developers, to raise the price point for the entire industry.”
What Dessouky is suggesting is that GTA 6 will be such a big game that if it released at $70, all other $70 games would suddenly feel like a terrible deal by comparison, which makes some sense if GTA 6 is indeed as massive as suggested. Also, in addition to it being in Take-Two and the wider industry’s best interest, Dessouky suggests this will happen because the price of games relative to inflation has fallen over time, making $80 a reasonable ask.
These comments come following Zelnick’s remarks in an on-stage interview, during which he was asked about the pricing of the long-awaited sequel. Zelnick reiterated past statements that whatever Take-Two charges for GTA 6, customers must feel they’re getting something worth or more than worth that value. In a vacuum, his comments felt pretty Economics 101, but with Bank of America’s commentary you could almost read it as if he’s saying 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 that you bring to them, and our job is to charge way way way less of the value delivery,” he said. “How you feel about something you buy is the intersection of the thing itself and what you pay for. Consumers need to feel like the thing itself is amazing and 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 nearly a decade, worked on by thousands of highly skilled workers across multiple studios around the world, and those salaries do not come cheap. Zelnick also spoke directly to Bloomberg in an interview that was published today, during which he talked about how the high cost of GTA 6’s development leads to very high expectations of the upcoming release. Some analysts have predicted the game will sell in the ballpark of 25 million copies by day one alone. Zelnick suggests to Bloomberg that a figure like ten million copies sold on day one would actually be a disaster, despite such a sales number being unfathomably high to basically anyone else.
“Development costs have gone up and up,” he said. “And we really do aim to deliver the highest quality entertainment on Earth. And that is costly. And AI influence is not withstanding. We haven’t seen those costs decline yet. Maybe we will. Maybe we won’t.”
And yet, again from Bloomberg, Grand Theft Auto 6 is taking another big risk in not launching on PC: it’s just coming to PlayStation and Xbox on release, though it’s expected to arrive on PC eventually like past Rockstar releases. “Rockstar always starts on console because I think with regard to a release like that you’re judged by serving the core,” Zelnick said. “Like really serving the core consumer. If your core consumer isn’t there, if they’re not served first and best, you kind of don’t hit your other consumers.”
In light of all that, yeah, it wouldn’t be shocking if Take-Two charged an extra $10 a pop, or even more, for what is assuredly going to be one of the most costly games (to make) of all time. We can only continue to rampantly speculate on the price until it’s officially revealed, though, which I’m hoping will happen this summer when the game’s marketing blitz kicks off officially ahead of its November 19 launch.
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