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GTA 6 pre-orders begin this week, which means we're mere hours away from confirmation on one of the biggest questions looming over Rockstar's open-world behemoth: how much is this thing gonna cost? Nintendo set a new precedent for $80 AAA games with Mario Kart World, and with GTA likely being the most expensive game ever made, fans are bracing for what could be the most expensive retail price tag for a video game ever.
A recent leak from a European retailer suggested the base version of GTA 6 could arrive at €89.99 (roughly $100), with the priciest SKU landing at €199.99 ($227), but a reliable insider has debunked those numbers as "random" placeholders not indicative of official Take-Two pricing. Still, analysts say they wouldn't be surprised to see those kinds of prices on GTA 6. It is GTA 6, after all.
Talking to Eurogamer, Circana analyst Mat Piscatella says the rumored leaked prices are both "possible and plausible", adding that Rockstar parent company Take-Two Interactive is in the advantageous position of being able to do "just about anything in regard to pricing" when it comes to GTA 6.
In any other situation, particularly in the economically turbulent world in which we live, most would be unwilling to accept such exorbitant prices for games, says The Game Business's Chris Dring, but "GTA 6 is not most games." He adds: "Fans know the value offered by a GTA. This is a game that will last a long time and will justify that level of cost for a lot of people."
Rockstar itself has dubbed GTA 6 "the largest game launch in history," and you could reasonably broaden that statement to include the entertainment industry more broadly, but that unprecedented anticipation and production budget needn't be proportionate to the game's price tag.
Certainly, if there's a game out there with enough momentum to ask people for $100 to play the most affordable version, it's GTA 6, but Take-Two could just as easily play the long game and lower that barrier of entry, potentially welcoming a whole new category of gamers who have yet to migrate over from last-gen consoles. GTA 6 will be exclusive to current-gen PlayStation and Xbox consoles at launch, with a PC date yet to be confirmed, so pricing the game closer to the current retail standard of $70 could make the cost of transitioning to PS5/Xbox Series X "more palatable," argues Dring, especially with recent price increases on gaming hardware across the board.
Another big strategic reason to keep GTA 6's price tag relatively low is GTA Online, what Alinea Analytics analyst Rhys Elliott says is "the real cash cow" in Take-Two's pocket. "Capping GTA 6's addressable audience at launch to squeeze the base price would be penny-wise and pound-foolish," he says. "They'd needlessly be limiting the top of the funnel that feeds the thing that actually prints money for a decade. And let's not forget there's a cost-of-living crisis. A higher floor hits exactly the players already feeling the squeeze."
With GTA 6 pre-orders starting on June 25, we only have a couple of days until we know for sure how much the game will cost, but it's interesting that there's no clear consensus from analysts at this juncture. I suppose with no other game launch to compare, it's uniquely difficult to predict Take-Two's strategy when it comes to pricing, but from the humble perspective of a player and critic, I'm holding out hope for a $70 base version so that as many people as possible can witness what will be, in Dring's words, "the entertainment event of the century."
