The jump from $60 to $70 for blockbuster games has already proved divisive for longtime gamers. But would you pay $100 for what’s easily going to be the biggest game of 2025, Grand Theft Auto VI? One analyst thinks publisher Take-Two Interactive is aiming for a “previously unheard of price point” for GTA VI, so long as it comes with fake money usable in GTA Online.
The analysis is from Wedbush Securities’ managing director of equity research Michael Pachter, as first reported by VGC. Pachter wrote in a research note that Take-Two “can offer consumers an incentive” to drop $100 on a game with the promise of a reward of “a large amount of in-game currency to be spent on GTA Online.”
GTA Online is a major revenue stream for Take-Two. In its latest quarterly earnings report, the publisher claims the online multiplayer mode from GTA V was still one of its biggest hitters, despite the mode being nearly 12 years old. The game has made more than $9.54 billion since launch, according to the company’s financial report.
In a phone interview with Gizmodo, Pachter said he came to his conclusion after conversations with Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick. While GTA maker Rockstar hasn’t yet described what may be different between the new game and the developer’s older open-world titles, Pachter speculated there could be elements where GTA Online is infused with the game’s single-player mode. A player could find some content restricted to the online mode, requiring players to load into online to complete a mission and unlock something for single player.
If a player buys the game at launch for $100, they might also receive a certain amount of in-game credits for purchasing items in GTA Online. The $100 version may also let players access upcoming DLC add-ons. That by itself isn’t new. There are plenty of games that sell season passes for future content before launch. GTA VI, on the other hand, could simply be the most expensive.
Take-Two makes most of its money in GTA Online through subscription fees and in-game purchases, aka microtransactions. In our conversation, Pachter noted that the live service model worked well for Activision with Call of Duty Warzone. The battle royale mode started life as Call of Duty Blackout. Once Activision broke it off into its own free-to-play mode, the game’s player base exploded. More people were willing to spend on microtransactions.
“Ideally, they would make GTA Online free to play,” Pachter said. The game could be a 400- to 500-hour behemoth, and, the analyst added, the whole point is to make players feel like they are getting their money’s worth.
“If they do it smart, if they give you enough value, nobody is going to be mad,” he said.
We still don’t know how Rockstar and Take-Two plan to package their game. Beyond any special editions with inflated prices, setting the cost of GTA VI at $100 could set a precedent throughout the industry, and that’s exactly what publishers want.
Other analysts have suggested the video game industry hopes GTA VI will be priced between $80 and $100. Investment advisory company Epyllion CEO Matthew Ball wrote that the video game industry is seeing declining growth. A $100 GTA VI would mean more gamemakers can justify squeezing customers for more money for every game purchase. A $50 game could become $60, a title priced at $70 could become $80, and so on.
Industry insiders say game prices have not kept pace with inflation. As noted by IGN, Michael Douse, the publishing director at Larian—the makers of Baldur’s Gate III—said that prices are making it hard to pay developers what they’re owed. Still, he left room to point out the industry’s overall greed. He added that, while game prices haven’t increased with inflation, “this isn’t the reason the industry is in the shit for now, but it is an uncomfortable truth.”
It’s a fair point. Pachter noted that a game like GTA VI may cost $500 million to $1 billion in development, and that’s just for salaries for the more than 1,000 developers who have worked on it for the last several years (Rockstar released its last big game, Red Dead Redemption 2, in 2018).
On the other hand, while game prices have remained stagnant for decades, the same can be said for average U.S. wages. Now, thanks to new policies under President Donald Trump, gamers can expect prices on hardware to climb even higher. If the video game industry is worried about growth, then potentially pricing consumers out of big games won’t help their bottom line.
In previous financial reports from 2024, Take-Two promised the release window for GTA VI was in the fall of this year. Will that hold true, knowing the astronomical cost of game development and the supposed scope of Rockstar’s next GTA? We have our doubts, though Take-Two promised its next major release is on track for this year.
