Take-Two boss dodges GTA 6 pricing as $80 games loom: "We've had variable pricing at the company forever"

GTA 6 – Who's in it? Can I play it? Is it awesome? Will it rock my world? Are we entering a new era of humanity marked by increased narcissism, masochism, and instinctual thrill-seeking? Are we, humans, born to destroy ourselves? Or is there salvation at the end of the river we're too anxious to wade in? Oh yeah, and how much does GTA 6 cost?

These are the questions boinging around everyones' heads these days like pinballs, but I'd like to make the case that no one is less interested in having all the answers than Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, who was being cagey about GTA 6 pricing in a new Variety interview ahead of the 2K parent company's latest quarterly earnings call.

"That announcement will come from Rockstar in due time," Zelnick said about GTA 6's price tag. "Our goal always is to deliver more value than what we charge, so we've had variable pricing at the company forever."

Sure, fine, but, a bit of background: earlier this week, The Telegraph reported Ampere Analysis analyst Louise Wooldridge predicted GTA 6 will be "one of the most expensive games ever made," while Wedbush Securities broker Michael Pachter said "I expect a $100 price point for the game. The game will be immensely profitable. It will likely generate $10 billion lifetime and another $500 million annually from GTA Online."

So Zelnick might as well have directly addressed these comments – and comments like them amid players' mounting concerns that video games are becoming prohibitively expensive – in his Variety interview, though he kept his statement pointedly vague and devoid of actual numbers.

"As you know, the approach of the industry is to launch at a premium price, sometimes with special editions, and over time, typically to reduce the price to enhance the overall size of the market," Zelnick said. "We do the very same thing. I think, probably more than most, we're highly focused on making sure that the experience is great – not just because the game itself is great, but also because consumers have paid a fair price for it."

GTA 6 will "remain" the most expensive game ever, former Rockstar dev predicts, because GTA 7 will see the "bulk of the work" replaced by AI.