'Grand Theft Auto VI' Price Window Confirmed — and Fans are Divided
The price of Grand Theft Auto IV has been confirmed — at least, according to Strauss Zelnick, the CEO of Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of Rockstar Games.
Speaking in a video interview with The Game Business about the concept of in-game ads in one of the most anticipated games of all time, Zelnick confirmed there would be no such advertisements. Additionally, he revealed a key piece of information about how much gamers can expect to pay for the billion-dollar budget release.
“It’s very difficult for me to believe that [Rockstar Games] would want to have interstitial advertising in a game that someone paid 70 or 80 bucks for; that would seem unfair.”
For comparison, Grand Theft Auto V, released in 2013, cost $59.99 — roughly a $10-20 price hike. Online, fans excited for the upcoming release were split about whether or not this seemed like a rightful adjustment, or another classic case of inflation in gaming.
On Reddit, f1uke55l said they're "Waiting for hordes of people to say a video game should never cost that much, disregarding the fact that this might end up being the best value for money entertainment product as far as $ to Hours of content ratio that we'll ever possibly see," to the tune of 199 upvotes.
"[Video games] have always been expensive. In raw purchasing power, they've virtually always been about as expensive as they are now-- or more expensive," zedanger pointed out in the same thread. "Buying videogames in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s was not cheap. $50 USD was a lot more money back then than it is today."
ClassroomMother8062 responded to them, "Legend of Zelda II was $49.99 in 1986, adjusted for inflation that's closer to $150 today. "I don't understand folks thinking [GTA VI] needs to retail for that same figure. It's Grand Theft Auto."
On X (formerly Twitter), users were more divided compared to the r/GTA6 subreddit. @theGTAassassin had a more mixed review for what this means for the future of gaming. "Problem is, $80 might be a fair price for GTA 6. But other game companies will get a free pass to increase their pricing to $80 too," they wrote. "And maybe, their game won't deserve that."
"Yeah, Games have been slowly reaching the $80 and getting comfortable there," @remedyrenga wrote.
Others, however, praised Take-Two for what they thought was a steal. "Gaming CEOs after finding out [Take-Two] won’t be charging 100 bucks for GTA VI," @EDG7688 wrote as a caption for a gif of Ron Swanson from Parks and Recreation throwing his computer in the dumpster.