Grand Theft Auto 6 (GTA 6) will easily be the biggest game release of 2025 if it actually comes out this year. But the recent speculation in the industry is that it might also come with an equally massive price tag. We’ve all heard the $100 rumors, and a new report from an industry analyst suggests that Take Two might take a page out of Activision’s book.
The report suggests that GTA 6 could charge $100 if it bundles some online currency for GTA Online. But Call of Duty’s recent decline raises a critical question: is Rockstar about to repeat the same mistake? If history is any indication, this decision could backfire in a major way. We don’t need GTA to focus on the live service side of GTA 6.
Do we really need GTA 6 to take inspiration from Activision?
Take-Two’s decision to price GTA 6 at $100 would be a historic shift in the gaming industry. The company was also one of the first to push standard game prices from $60 to $70 with NBA 2K21 in 2020. And as we very well know, the entire industry has followed suit. Industry analyst Michael Pachter from Wedbush Securities has suggested that Take-Two is planning to sell GTA 6 at a premium price of $100 or more.
According to a recent research note by Pachter (via VGC), Take Two could potentially justify this new pricing by bundling in-game currency for GTA Online with GTA 6. This would be very similar to how Activision integrates Warzone with its yearly Call of Duty releases. But we don’t even know if the upcoming game will feature a new online mode yet.
We think the company has plans to sell the game at a previously unheard of price point, and suspect that management can offer consumers an incentive to pay $100 or more per unit by rewarding them with a large amount of in-game currency to be spent in GTA Online
Activision has spent years pushing the limits of monetization in Call of Duty, and recent player trends suggest it has gone too far. Black Ops 6 initially saw strong engagement, but the franchise recently hit record-low player counts on Steam.
Call of Duty is now full of microtransactions, controversial in-game purchases, and even AI-generated content now after Black Ops 6. These recent developments have even gotten a lot of fans calling for the franchise to go free-to-play. Rockstar isn’t a company that focuses on the live service aspect of its games, and it shouldn’t.
We barely have the patience for mid $70 games, $100 is a stretch
If GTA 6 actually comes out at a $100 price point, it could change the entire gaming industry. Other publishers have already been waiting for an opportunity to justify higher prices, and a successful $100 game could give them the green light. Like how NBA 2K21 paved the way for $70 games, GTA 6 could normalize $100 games. We don’t need that when developers aren’t even delivering quality products at full price.
Unlike Call of Duty, which releases a new game annually, GTA is a once-in-a-decade event. Rockstar has built an unparalleled reputation, and the hype for GTA 6 will make people ignore any concerns about pricing. We’ve already heard reports that other developers are adjusting their game release dates to avoid competition.
Grand Theft Auto is one of the most respected franchises in gaming, with a legacy built on quality, innovation, and player freedom. Rockstar has already tested our patience by making us wait a decade for GTA 6. We’re more than glad to wait for a quality game. But those are few and far between in the current state of the industry, and that’s where we have no patience.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
