The Old ‘GTA 6 Could Be $100’ Comet Has Circled Back Around

A take has returned earth’s orbit, circling back around before heading back into irrelevance in the as it leaves the solar system again. It’s the idea that when GTA 6 arrives it should or even could be $100, as opposed to the new standard of $70.

This idea comes from a 200+ slide presentation from entertainment industry analyst Matthew Ball that is actually a decent flip-through in terms of the industry issues it presents, and there are plenty. But the slideshow ends on the $100 GTA 6 pricing note, which sort of loses the plot. Here’s Ball:

“Some gamemakers hope GTA 6 will be priced at $80-100, breaking the $70 barrier and helping $50 titles move up to $60, $60 to $70, $70 to $80.” He goes on to talk about how due to inflation, GTA 6 at $70 will be the “cheapest” entry in the series in relative terms, and how this whole pricing issue is turning into a back-breaking industry problem.

That does not mean a $10-30 price increase would help, of course.

Video games cost around $50 back in the early 2000s, increasing to $60 in the mid-2000s. Then in 2020 when the industry was booming during the pandemic, the standard for most AAA games rose to $70.

Sure, if there is a game that could get away with a $100 base price, it might be GTA 6, but it seems unlikely for this to happen, nor should it happen in the wider industry for a number of reasons.

• There are frequently $100+ special editions of games already sold, many of which now even come with an earlier launch date than standard copies and digital items that should probably be in the game already.
• Microtransactions have exploded over the past decade, tacking on extra revenue for these “cheap” games that did not exist before. GTA 6 is an especially poor example of a game that needs to increase its price in a way that doesn’t feel like gouging, given that over the last decade its companion mode GTA Online has earned nearly $9 billion in revenue and there’s no reason to think its GTA 6 counterpart won’t do the same.
• Unlike the early days of cheaper games, players are now forced to pay for an extra subscription service layered on top of the game itself on console, be that PSN or Xbox Live (Xbox Game Pass “Core” now). Yearly installments that add up to hundreds more dollars over the course of a console generation. Higher priced subscriptions like PS+ and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate are also quickly becoming almost standard.
• You can talk about inflation all you want, but you know what else inflation affects? People’s income and spending power, not to mention the absurdly static federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour which has stayed the same since 2009. What do you think that does to consumer buying power, particularly at lower income brackets that still want to keep up with new games?

Even some devs are publicly not buying this idea. Here’s Larian’s Michael Douse on the idea (Larian being the developer of 2023 GOTY Baldur’s Gate 3, which launched at $60 on Steam):

“The conventional logic is that “players are not as price sensitive as people think,” Douse saids. “but this applies to 40-60 (they say it doesn’t make a difference). Leaping to $100 when quality can’t be trusted would be suicide, especially with the decline of marketing avenues.”

And on the suggestion that some publishers (like Rockstar) could get away with that price:

“You’re 100% right, but so few that the blanket argument that games need to be $100 now due to inflation, doesn’t make sense.”

I do not see GTA 6 being above $70 outside of special additions and no doubt GTA Online subscriptions along with its massive host of microtransactions. Just because this one game could doesn’t mean it should, nor does it have wider industry applications at the present moment.

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