I’m not quite sure why they’re so concerned. I suspect they’re actually not and this is just things “analysts” say.
I suspect that the release of GTA VI is going to be lukewarm compared to the release of GTA V, because everyone remembered what Rockstar did to GTA V. People are going to wait around and see how they handle GTA online because they need to do better than last time because last time was ridiculous.
I’m certainly not all that interested in getting it day one and I know a lot of other people aren’t either.
I don’t know. Gamers have very short memory and are driven by FOMO and social media coverage.
Just look at the whole Cyberpunk situation. Or, more recently, the Sparking Zero drama. Everyone pre-ordered the 120$ edition to play earlier, just because of shiny graphics ™️. Then, when the honey moon phase was over, the subreddit turned into a shithole full of frustration and complaints. The playercount numbers dropped. All you can see now is reports of bugs, glitches and so on. But still, most of these folks are already considering the purchase of SZ2, cause they are sure devs will definitely fix the issues.
Just watch GTA 6 pre-orders skyrocket as soon as Rockstar drops the 2nd trailer, next year.
There’s absolutely zero reason to pre-order the bonuses you get are never worth it and it’s not like they’re going to run out. Hell I didn’t pre-order GTA V and I got it day one on both PS3 and Xbox 360 but just walking into a store on lunch time. And that was a physical media now everything’s gone digital is even less reason to pre-order.
So I’ll not be pre-ordering regardless, but I wouldn’t be pre-ordering anyway because I don’t trust Rockstar anymore. I’m not saying that the game will be bad I’m just saying I don’t trust Rockstar fully anymore. I also don’t trust CDPR anymore because of cyberpunk. Yeah they fixed it but so what, I don’t want to be encouraging that kind of release strategy. Same thing with hello games, If they want people to go back to buying their games by default, these companies have to release some whoppers with zero issues day one to get back their reputation.
The older gemers may remember but there is a whole generation that has spung up since.
Edit: a quick look shows there were 1.7 billion people born between 1995 and 2007 i.e. born in the period that would have trurned 18 between 2013 and 2025… This corresponds to 20% of the global population.
This is so strange. Wasn’t it not long ago that studios were crowding into very specific release windows ( usually november iirc ) so they could maximize initial sales? Maybe the digital release era has changed things. I mean, I get it if your game was in the same niche or smth, but “companies might tank” seems a little much.
Either way, if this is true, eoy 2025 is in for a dry spell when it comes to new games.
Edit: Also I find it hilarious how all these “industry analysts” keep popping up suggesting ominous things despite Rockstar not saying a peep about the game besides the trailer. Almost as if they were paid to do it.
Over time they realised that, while holiday windows or whatever have high sales, if there’s a better or more popular game coming out then, yours will just be forgotten.
That said, most “industry specialists” are just glorified influencers, so take it with a grain of salt
They aren’t crowding into those windows because competition helps their sales, it’s because they expect the biggest shopping period of the year will result in more sales than they lose. And there’s a reason only the biggest titles release in these windows.
Capcom made the decision years ago to release in February/March because they know a November window will drown them.
Judging by all the shark card crap they jammed into the last GTA, I fully expect them to shovel a bunch of crap in to make more money: $70 base games, deluxe editions, DLC, micro transactions, social club integration, required internet connections, all of it.
Yeah, the Witcher 3 release should have taught the game publishers this. CDPR delayed the launch by several months because the game wasn’t ready to ship yet. And the game was phenomenal, and received rave reviews pretty much across the board. Gamers were disappointed about the launch, but basically went “this game will be worth the wait.”
I’d argue that is just another example of why delaying games isn’t a bad thing. 2077 clearly wasn’t ready at launch, and would have benefitted from a delayed launch.
I feel like that one was also due to awful development practices, they had the whole scrapping the entire first 2 years of work thing due to a control freak lead dev who was ultimately releaved of his position (though not until after release iirc)
I wouldn’t call it a success yet. I just started playing it for the first time yesterday and I have already fallen through the floor twice and the camera was broken causing seizure inducing visuals in one of the cutscenes.
You realize that rockstar basically invented this strategy right? Almost every release since vice city or San Andreas has been delayed by 6 months to a year to be the best game possible.
Sure you can argue standard practice has been and should be to deliver a finished game first and foremost. But in the context of modern gaming and setting release dates, Rockstar has historically been unafraid to change a release date to make a better game. But yes before the internet and the ability to patch a game it was standard to make sure your game didn’t suck before letting it loose.
And my comment was more to point out that using CDPR as a shining beacon of consistently solid game releases is laughable, especially when comparing them to Rockstar.
I do wanna point out that one of the Horizon games (I believe the second) got pretty screwed by releasing within a week of Elden Ring and didn’t suck. Publishers big and small do need to be careful to not release within a time frame of absolutely massive releases such as Elden Ring and, inevitably, GTA6.
Even if the game doesn’t let you play on release day, I’m willing to bet my kidney that it’ll sell millions of copies and nothing big will be released within a month of it
“Just make good games” doesn’t really work in the age where we’ve got tens of thousands of game releases per year compared to the age of a few hundred games per year.
The failure of a game doesn’t come hand in hand with it being bad. Lots of studios are struggling right now, because there’s just so much out there, and no one wants to compete with GTA.
They are all from players who are against things Rockstar did with GTA and what it represents for the industry. But they are not representative of the whole market.
The article is right about the impact for small studios. On the timeline for the game I’m working on, we have a prediction for GTA VI release with a big question mark and we hope to avoid it.
The problem is not that all players will spend $100 on the game. The problem is that the majority of the press coverage, Steam traffic, streamer time, etc. will focus on the topic. Even if there is bad press around GTA, that’s still attention that is not on other games.
Exactly this. I work in the games industry as well and even big studios are falling over themselves NOT to release anywhere near GTA6.
Nobody believes there won’t be people playing other games at that time. But it’s going to dominate the media cycle for a month, especially if it is either better or worse than fans hope. And the reality is that many, many people have limited gaming budgets. If you’ve only got $100 to spend, GTA6 is very likely to be the default pick at that time.
It’s a behemoth in terms of grabbing attention from both the media and players. All the best laid plans for a successful release can be completely derailed by a game like GTA6.
They want $100 for this. They are trying to make games expensive again.
In my mind, the bigger and more expensive the dev team, the more likely the business people are to be involved. Those business types really know how to suck fun and fairness out of games in an attempt to turn it into unbridled profits.
Buy a handful of games from small independent studios instead of this if you feel similarly to me.
They’d ask $1000 for it if they thought people will pay it. No one at Take Two or Rockstar has said this. Most likely is they’ll do that $100 “advance access” thing that a lot of AAA games like to do, where you get the game a few days early. The business hasn’t gotten in the way of the fun or fairness of the campaign mode for Rockstar’s previous efforts, and if it did this time, we’ll certainly hear about it immediately.
Inflation adjusted Mario 64 cost in 2022 = $111.91
Inflation adjusted Mario 64 budget in 2022 = ~$2.91mil
Cost of “Elden Ring” on release = $59.99
Estimated dev. budget for Elden Ring = $100mil-200mil
Mario 64 units sold = ~12mil
Elden Ring units sold = ~28mil
These details are provided without comment. You do the math and decide whether the fact that prices haven’t changed since 1996 might be the reason for some of the enshitification we continue to see.
And now for the comment:
Consumers are horrifyingly resistant to price increases for games. It is directly responsible for many of the shitty monetization models we’ve seen. Development budget continue to rise, even on indie games, while consumers pay less and less in “real money value” over time.
It’s completely unsustainable and the very reason the “business types” get involved, forcing unpopular monetization schemes
While that may be true, the costs and budgets we’re dealing with today are orders of magnitude higher than they were back then. Physical product manufacturing doesn’t even come close to making up the difference when you factor in digital storefront costs.
And yet, these days I am finding better games, made by smaller teams, for lower prices (usually between $30-40) from indie devs. The cost ain’t the reason for enshittification, and paying a higher price will not mean we get better games.
If you like bigger games, and plenty do, them charging a higher price for it up front makes it more likely that they’re made sustainably. If a game costs $100M to make, the difference between breaking even on $70 versus $60 is hundreds of thousands of additional customers.
I simply chose two big, well known, and beloved titles for the sake of expediency.
This problem is not unique to big budget games.
Indie devs are getting screwed too. You saying that you’ve found great games for $30-40 from indie devs isn’t an argument against more sustainable pricing like you think it is.
If the dev budget for the indie game was 5% of the AAA game but the price was 50% then you’ve literally just helped prove my point
The fact is - and I challenge you to prove me wrong here - video games continue to be hands down the best dollar-per-hour investment for entertainment. Even a $60 game that only lasts 20 hrs is still coming in at $3/hr of entertainment, which is very hard to beat. When you look at live service games where people will spend literally thousands of hours after paying anywhere from $60-200 you’re looking at $0.10/hr in some cases.
Now throw in average incomes on the low, medium, and high ends and see if that makes any difference in your criticism of people not wanting to spend so much on a game they might get a hundred or so hours out of.
Hell, throw in the average housing costs and costs of consumables while we’re at it.
Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the capital structure is fair by any means. I understand all the reasons why people - especially right now - are struggling to justify big purchases.
And I will readily agree that inefficient and improper use of resources is one of the contributing factors to ballooning development budgets
That said, video games are - and I challenge you to disprove this - easily one of the best investments for entertainment. Dollars-per-hour of fun on a 20hr, $60 game is $3. For a live service game where people spend hundreds of thousands of hours playing it can get below $0.10 per hour.
EDIT: I also agree that demos need to make a comeback because I’m sick of wasting money. Though people also need to read some reviews before they buy occasionally :/
You realize that costing more does satiate the greed a little bit, right?
Like, yeah, we all know that line-goes-up capitalism isn’t sustainable, but there are still other reasons call of duty has loot boxes and battle passes now.
I never said anything about the quality of the games. I’m speaking specifically to the monetization bullshit.
As I said elsewhere: budget bloat happens in a lot of places. Greedy executive and publishers is one place. Overambitious design goals that get scrapped is another. There’s also bad tools workflows, mismanagement, and any number of other contributing factors.
But even indie devs are getting screwed on pricing and making far less than they deserve to be in many cases.
If people keep buying CoD and Assassins Creed, devs will keep making them. And if they can’t increase retail price to cover the budget they will find other ways to do it.
We’re still talking about ~3 mil to ~150 mil. If the software dev costs for Mario 64 were closer to ~1.5 mil, what does that have to do with the argument being made?
Are you seriously questioning whether there is any hype for GTA?
GTAV Online may have hindered Rockstar’s goodwill for fans of the single player mode, but the Online mode rakes in cash.
RDR2 released in 2018 and is widely considered one of the best single player games with one of the best open worlds, strongly signalling to fans that Rockstar hasn’t lost its mojo.
GTA VI is, unquestionably, the most anticipated game of the year. To suggest otherwise is to be insanely disingenuous on your part.
No, I’m honestly surprised. I’ve barely heard anything about GTA VI. Seriously. I don’t care about it, none of my friends have talked about it despite being the kinda game that they’d be into, and I’ve only seen one or two articles on it.
You sure it’s that highly anticipated? My observation is that people have gotten really sick and tired of AAA games, and this is a shift that’s occurred since RDR2 came out. Very few of the people I know still regularly play AAA games, and those who do almost never buy them on launch. I haven’t seen anywhere near the same amount of hype for GTA VI as I saw for GTA IV or GTA V.
You’re accusing me of being disingenuous? Maybe you’re the one who’s buying into the hype and overestimating public interest. Or perhaps the true answer is somewhere in the middle. Who knows. I was not intentionally downplaying your favorite series though.
shrug Idk if it’s really that insane. Tbh I’m not convinced the hype isn’t being manufactured. I have a cousin who’s a pretty bog standard, flavor-of-the-month gamer, and he’s said nothing about GTA VI.
Not saying you’re necessarily wrong, I guess, just that something seems off.
Grand Theft Auto V came out 12 years ago and has been in the top ten best sellers almost every single month since then. It’s not manufactured; you’re just very out of the loop. It’s one of the biggest money makers in all of video games. They spent an estimated $2B on GTA6 and will almost certainly make it back within days, not years.
They’ll make it back in HOURS, especially if it launches on PC same day. I went to the V night launch way back when. There were 500+ people in line at the store I went to. I didn’t sleep for three days after getting it. The hype train is only getting started and will ramp up to supersonic once we get a firm date. I’ll be buying a copy for every platform that I own. It’s going to be sheer fucking pandemonium.
That guy has NO CLUE whatsoever in terms of GTA hype and popularity.
just a reminder that you live in a different culture than the average video game player. I haven’t even completed GTA5 and aren’t in the circle of GTA players. Hell, the funnest part for me is driving in a really big circle while listening to music, but as out of touch as I am, I know it’s really REALLY hyped
The main writers have since left Rockstar. Dan Houser left in 2020. I feel GTA will lose it's charm with this next entry, I hope I am wrong, but something just feels off. Either way, won't be buying it until it's on a good sale.
It’s certainly going to be interesting how this game is received. Rockstar is one of those studios that burns all its goodwill with things like Online, the “Definitive” editions, RDR2 Online closing early, yet despite that it’s the largest studio with one of the largest, most successful franchises.
With the industry being so dire right now, where only huge behemoths like rockstar, or tiny efficient indie studios, can really compete, the outcome of GTA 6 might be quite consequential for the industry.
All they ever did was riff on popular (crime) movies, and they were already scraping the bottom of the bin on that with 5. What popular movies in recent times has 6 even got to be inspired by?
They lost Lazlow… There goes the greatest radio DJ to ever grace the gta airwaves.
When they added purchasable clubs into online and you could get Lazlow to come to your club, I made it my entire goal to make him happy, I spent so much cash keeping him dancing, always made me sad seeing him sitting there alone as the reality of it all hit him.
Same here. GTAV, while I liked it, was a minor disappointment for me and I burned out on it. Plus after seeing how GTA Online went and how greedy they got with it, I’m just not interested in Take Two/Rockstar games anymore.
not to mention they decided to block Linux users back in October. I had very little interest in it in the last 6 or 7 years, but I decided when a friend played it I would try to join, just to be met with performance issues and getting kicked offline due to their anticheat. So stupid. It worked for years in Linux, then they just decide to boot it.
I lost what little interest period in anything GTA from that.
Well, to be fair, you don’t know you’re getting it for that. As far as I’ve seen, they haven’t announced the release price yet. And a lot of studios are hoping that Rockstar will take the fall for being the first $100 game so publishers can start charging used console prices for AAA games from then on.
Either way though, I won’t be paying anything for it.
Based on what? You don’t actually know until it gets released. Sure, past history and reputation are certainly things to factor in, but we’ve seen plenty of major gaming companies shit the bed, despite their reputations.
I’m responding to a comment assuming it’ll be nothing but a “pay to win” game, despite any real evidence of that - I’m pointing out the expectations of GTA VI.
This sub is like Reddit on steroids. Just a bunch of contrarian kids trying to start arguments on the internet. Bizarre.
You hope you’ll get those things. It’s Rockstar though so who really knows. I mean we do know we’re going to get a single player that’s been confirmed by Rockstar but everything else is just a guess. The map leak people seem to suggest that the map will include NASA and Disneyland which will be cool I guess, but we don’t know that that’s just a prediction and I don’t quite understand how they can predict that.
I just don’t trust Rockstar not to screw it up with GTA online 2, now with more irritating flying bikes
Because I don’t want to play full price for a 1080 upscaled experience at 30fps. If it’s a good experience then it will be worth the wait and that much better when it runs smoother, looks better, and loads faster. Plus it will have most of the bugs worked by then.
This will probably be the last time it ever happens. They’re trying to get people to double dip, and plenty will, but the console install base isn’t what it was when GTA V came out at the end of a generation. Plus we all know full well that the PC version will happen, whereas in yesteryear, we weren’t sure.
If we were just talking PlayStation I would say 97% is near enough to make no difference but if we compare both platforms together its only 67% and that is enough to influence strategy. A console only release in 2025 is unlikely to eclipse GTA5’s position as “fastest-selling entertainment product in history”.
But also don’t forget that the amount of gamers is larger today than in 2013. Gaming is much more mainstream, and so even 97% of the install base is still disappointing considering steam grew by, what, 3x or something in terms of average monthly users?
Another source I found is that the amount of total gamers grew by roughly 50% from 2013 to 2025. But yeah, I just did a quick skin numbers are not precise
But still, 97% is disappointing considering the general demographic was supposed to grow. And then, in reality, it’s just 67% too
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