GTA 6 Boss' Pricing Comments Are Concerning Fans

Rockstar Games has finally announced that gamers will get their first proper look at "Grand Theft Auto 6" next month. While this fact certainly has fans dancing in the street from excitement, it's also invited a great number of all-new questions: When is the release date? How long will the game be, and how will it change "Grand Theft Auto Online?" What will it cost? More rumors concerning the game's retail price have popped up in the last couple of months, and recent comments from the CEO of Rockstar's parent company, Take-Two Interactive, have only served to rile up the series' fans.

Speaking with investors about the state of Take-Two's earnings, company CEO Strauss Zelnick explained, "In terms of our pricing for any entertainment property, basically the algorithm is the value of the expected entertainment usage, which is to say the per-hour value times the number of expected hours plus the terminal value that's perceived by the customer in ownership, if the title is owned rather than rented or subscribed to." 

Essentially, Zelnick is making the common argument that longer games should theoretically cost more, while also taking into account how much said game has to offer and whether or not the customer is buying vs. renting the title. The overall idea here is to ensure that the customer is getting what they paid for and the developer is being compensated for its work. Though Zelnick went on to concede that industry-standard pricing — typically $60-$70 for a AAA release — is still a competitive price point that brings in new customers, gamers have expressed a bit of concern about what his comments may mean for the future of "Grand Theft Auto."

Let's get this out of the way first: "Grand Theft Auto 6" is going to be an absolutely massive game, much like the entries that came before it. With that in mind, the idea of charging more money for more game is obviously one that gives pause to fans of the "GTA" franchise, which is not known for its brevity. Fans on Reddit revolted at the very idea of basing the price of games around their runtime.

A number of gamers said they'd rather skip "GTA 6" or quit playing games entirely before they'd embrace this kind of pricing strategy. Another quipped, "Terraria would cost more than my house," if publishers started charging by the hour for content. Others joked that speedrunners should pay less for games, since they're theoretically not playing them as long as other people.

Luckily for these annoyed fans, Strauss Zelnick's comments on the whole seem to acknowledge that this theoretical pricing method isn't the most realistic in the current gaming market. Zelnick also added, "there is a great deal of value offered, and look, it's our strategy here to deliver much more value than what we charge consumers, that's always been our strategy." It doesn't sound like fans are in any danger of being overcharged for "GTA 6," but it's worth noting that this isn't the first time that the idea of a super-expensive release of "GTA 6" has been floated out. Recent rumors have pointed to the new game being absolutely brutal on gamers' wallets.

Back in September, Niche Gamer reported that "Grand Theft Auto 6" will retail for $150 at release, allegedly so that Rockstar Games can recoup its losses after a lengthy and expensive development cycle. Niche Gamer also reported that the game's production budget was somewhere in the neighborhood of one or two billion dollars, making it by far the most expensive video game of all time. This rumor quickly spread like wildfire, with gamers reacting viscerally to the idea of paying twice the price of most AAA games after waiting a decade for the sequel. Others hoped and prayed that the reported $150 price tag only applied to a collector's edition of the game.

However, other news outlets quickly shot down this report, noting that there was very little in the way of evidence to support the rumor. While it seems likely that Take-Two and Rockstar Games will stick to the $70 price point for "GTA 6," it's easy to see why fans are nervous about the cost of the game. Even the reports contradicting the $150 rumors seemingly haven't done much to quell these fears for a large section of the "GTA" community. Hopefully these concerns will all be cleared up when the first trailer for "Grand Theft Auto 6" drops in December.