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For eons now there’s been speculation about whether GTA 6 will cost more than the average game.
It’s expected, after all, to be the biggest title ever released; it’s following on from GTA 5, which has sold a remarkable 225 million copies since it launched in 2013.
But speaking at the Interactive Innovation Conference, Take-Two bigwig Strauss Zelnick appeared to push back against rumours that Rockstar’s upcoming open world could cost $100 or more.
He said, as reported by IGN:
“Consumers pay for the value that you bring to them, and our job is to charge way, way, way less of the value delivery. How you feel about something you buy is the intersection of the thing itself and what you pay for it. Consumers need to feel like the thing itself is amazing and the price they were charged was fair for what they got.”
One thing worth noting here is that GTA 5, despite selling millions upon millions of copies, makes the bulk of its money through GTA Online. In fact, just recently we got word via leaked data that the title’s multiplayer mode makes $10 million per week alone.
While it should have no trouble getting people to buy GTA 6, there is value in it having a massive install base, because that’s inevitably going to translate to Shark Card sales and GTA+ memberships. Those ongoing transactions may have more value for Rockstar in the long run than a high launch price.
We reckon the company will probably follow the same strategy as most other major publishers these days: sell the core game for $70 and then a more expensive Digital Deluxe edition for closer to $100. We predict, in addition to various pieces of in-game tat, the latter will include early access – which, let’s be honest, millions and millions are going to pay a premium for.
And that’s how we imagine the publisher’s going to technically charge more for the game, without actually raising the price of the base version.
But how much do you think GTA 6 is going to cost at launch? Do you believe what Zelnick is saying here? Let us know in the comments section below.