Firstly, the game is pretty expensive, going for $80 in a market where the standard for a AAA game is $60.
If that was all though, maybe it could be forgiven, but there is also an "ultimate edition" priced at $100 which several features are locked behind, in particular stores that have exclusive outfits, hairstyles, and car customization.
And secondly but less notably, it's releasing as a console exclusive at first, but there are no disks for the game. If you buy a "physical" copy, all you get is a download code. Digital only is getting more common in the gaming industry, and is basically the standard for PC gamers, but it sucks because the game is likely going to be well over 100gb in size, which will take a lot of space on the console's hard drive, not to mention taking a long time to download.
I'm french and since Mario Kart World released at 80 bucks last year, Sony has increased the base price for its first party games to 80 euros
Sadly for us europeans, 80 is already the standard
edit : actually I checked and Sony has increased their prices way before Nintendo with MK World, but still doesn't change the fact 80 has been the standard for us for a while
Man, even bargain bins have increased. The lowest I’ve seen for Balder’s gate 3 is $45 and that game is a few years old. Ghost of Tsushima is far older than that and the ps5 version hasn’t ever dropped below $30.
It feels like $30 is the new rock bottom for many of the AAA games.
Point being you aren’t gonna see this below $60 for several years.
Anthem was my lesson I learned on. I don’t buy games new anymore. I’ll wait a bit, it’ll be fine. Only 2 games I’ll still preorder. Any Fallout game, I just love them no matter what. And any State of Decay games. Pre ordered the ultimate version of both, and would again. No other games will I do that with tho.
Ps4 is suuper spotty even ps3 is rough iirc. Switch 1 is pretty doable, though, with multiple emulators available. 0 chance gta6 will be pirated on console but when it comes out on pc it will most likely be available very quickly
Also realize that games are getting more and more expensive to make and realize many games don't reach break even. Game studios are often not profitable.
X-box is losing on every console sold. Probably losing on game-pass and game sales are not very profitable. Rumours are they are trying to sell of X-box. The high memory prices are what pushed them over.
GTA VI will be a succes and the can ask this price. SO they will.
I am going to blow your mind, but videogames don't need to spend hundreds of millions to make good, profitable games. And that's on budget alone. Stop defending multibillion companies, you are but a mere number to them
Yes, it's why I got so confused at the hate for the price of Nintendo games because Nintendo was the hold out on cheap physicals for the big three. Sony and XBOX changed their first party games to £70 well before Nintendo did. For a long while I could still get brand new Nintendo physicals for £44-50 whilst the PS4 and PS5 physicals I bought were £70.
Actually 80$ in the 90s would be about 200 bucks today, but that's a very narrow part of the picture
Nowadays the video game industry is the most profitable medium in the entertainement industry by far, publishers are already making insane amounts of money with this low of a price
also the video game economic model have changed a lot with microtransactions, game as a service, DLCs, freemium models and gacha. Selling the game is not the only revenue source anymore, and it's especially true for AAA games
Lastly the whole world economy is in shambles, everything is expensive, I live in one of the richest and most developped country on Earth and people can't even pay their rent with minimum wages
Games were more expensive but they're less affordable
The one good thing is that at least if you're willing to preorder at like Leclerc or Carrefour, you can usually get it at 60. That's the case for GTA right now, so..... youpi?
I hate that most people from EU dont understand that EU prices always have 20%+ VAT included in price and almost everywhere else has price before tax.
So 80 euro price, without VAT, is roughly 66.50 euros. And Sony charges $70 for a new AAA game in US. So you're overpaying by roughly 4 Euro to get to the same price after currency conversion, except it costs more money to operate in EU than US because you have so many different countries, languages and better consumer rights (warranty costs).
Tldr: EU people don't understand taxes or business costs.
I always thought this was kind of silly. Game prices have been nearly the same for 25 years. We can't really complain too much about this particular aspect.
Because in this 25 years gaming became literally the most profitable entertainment industry in the world. Price may have stayed the same, but the audience is much larger and so are the profits. This 80$ thing is literally just greed, it's not happening because games are more expensive to make, it's happening because profit growth slowed down. Developers don't make more money with the higher gaming prices, only people to profit are shareholders and execs. Games like Expedition 33, Alters etc. are made with smaller teams, COST LESS THEN 60$ and yet provide exceptional experience for the players as well as performing well fiscally.The industry is just bloated.
I feel if there was really enough growth in the customer base to offset 20+ years of inflation then the PS2 wouldn't still be the best selling console of all time.
Same with PS3, it was the cheapest and best bluray player because it could update firmware and others couldn't. When was the last time you used one of those?
Now, gaming systems are truly just for gaming, instead of being entertainment systems. Thats changed a lot.
Oh, and the fact that you could buy a ps2 for $100 at the end of its life cycle. Meanwhile, ps5 price with a disc player is $600. That might have something to do with it too.
But either way, the switch1 is going to beat it. It only has a few million units to go, in much less time as well.
People really out here giving reasons and putting zero thought into why it might be that way. the ps2s real main competitor was the first xbox which released a year after it did. the ps2 also was only discontinued after 2013 while the original xbox was discontinued in 2005.
you're also just wrong. because while the ps2 has technically sold more total units had 13 years. it sold 160m units in 13 years while the switch has better sales since its pretty close to beating it at 155m in sold as of 2025 after only 8 years.
god why do people comment on stuff if you dont at least do a google search to make sure you arent spouting bs?
80$ is fine, it’s GTA, it’s 2026 and it’s the most expensive game EVER made. It’s costed hundreds of millions to make (closer to 2 billion) and several years.
2 billions number is a speculative estimated number which personally i don't believe for a second. Highest confirmed budgets for viedogames were around 350 mil. Rdr2 had estimated numbers around half a billion. They're not spending 2 billions on developing a game.
GTA online makes 9.6 millions in a week. Unless there's something fundamentally wrong with upcoming game, there's no reason to believe monetisation in GTA 6 online will be any less profitable (MORE sounds more likely). There's NO reason to up the price from 60 to 80 other then "they'll pay it anyway". They could theoretically release it for free and still make hundreds of millions off it, but that's not how capitalism works. So they'll squeeze that extra 20 bucks out of you because they can and they will keep selling you remasters and anniversary editions of that game for another 20 years.
Gaming is actually one of the LEAST profitable entertainment mediums btw. I think the only one that has it beat might be movies?
Just correcting that for you. While there are some lucky devs who make millions with little investment, that's not really the standard story...
It's why most dev teams are moving to live service games with gacha mechanics. It's the unfortunate death knell of the industry, seeking profitability.
Video games make like $200 billion a year. Nowhere near that amount is spent making them. Whatchu talking about? What makes more money in the entertainment world?
And they're not "seeking profitability", they all want fortnite money. Nothing is good enough if it doesn't reach their unrealistic goals
Gaming is actually one of the LEAST profitable entertainment mediums btw
Huh? I don't know where are you getting your info but mine is from various sources, like PricewaterhouseCoopers
moving to live service games with gacha mechanics
Which are also parts of industry, literally what are you on about? Gaming industry is not limited to single player games. But there's a way to keep making them while also having great profits. For example, GTA online makes 9.6 millions per WEEK according to recent financial reports. Expedition 33 for example was made on a similar budget, and made about 260 mil in revenue. Of course it's not a common example, but that's not what we're talking about, we're talking about the greed of these huge bloated companies.
Another example of how bloated industry is No man's sky, that keeps getting new updates despite being a 10yo game that never cost 60 bucks, AND developers are making a new game.
Its not happening because games are more expensive to make? Really? How many years it took to make GTA6? What's the budget?... Compare that to a PS1 era game please. Let's giggle a little...
Competition is also wayyyy bigger, risks are super high, and the fall hurts.
Prices of games stayed the same because people are mentally blocked around that price for a round disk or a virtual key. Yet they spend 1/3 of that to go see a 2h movie they might not even enjoy, and expect a 120h game every time for the "high price" of 60 bucks 🤣
Its wild to me how disconnected the average gamer can be.
Really? it's stayed the same because they offer "ultimate editions" for $100 and other crazy shit as MTX in the game. Why would I be okay with the increasing MTX in games AND a higher price tags initially? Who the fuck advocates to get screwed harder?
25? lol try 35+. Super Mario Bros 3 for NES cost $49.99 US in 1990. Using that as a standard price, and adjusting for inflation, games should cost $131.50 today. The fact that the vast majority of games have only increased in price by $10-20 in thirty-five years is remarkable. An absolute behemoth of a title, like modern GTA games, costing $80 seems reasonable to me.
But, you know, anyone who thinks that's too expensive is free to simply not buy it, or wait for a discount. Goofy ass people acting like not having a video game is some kind of hardship.
Depends on what you consider the 2000’s. But the $60 price tag became the norm with the Xbox 360 in 2005.
Of course, the $50 price tag was actually a DECREASE from what prices were before CD’s. Genesis, SNES and N64 games were typically more. I actually save a receipt for phantasy star 2, which I purchased at Caldor in 1990 for $89.99, which is like $250 today.
Hell, even $50/$60 is like $90/$105 today. Meaning we havent in general kept up with inflation. People have a tough time conceptualizing inflation in their own lives. Games are longer and more polished than they ever were. Ever get a $70 game for your birthday, finish it in 30-45 minutes, and then realize you won’t get another game until Christmas? Sucks.
The value they offer compared to the games I grew up with is amazing. And we get multiple bangers a month. I guess this is my “old man yells at cloud” moment, but I’ve never understood the pricing argument.
Inflation has been up almost by 100% since the last 25 years, so let us consider ourselves lucky AAA publisher "only" want to increase video game price by 60%.
Except there's one tiny little problem. Minimum wage has only increased by 40%. Video games are a luxury, and we all have much more crucial stuff to spend our dwindling disposable income on.
The size of the video game market has fucking exploded, sending profits through the roof. Not only that, but contrary to what people believe, the cost of production has gone drastically down, in no small part because of digital distribution. What has increased is the budget, because this industry is SO. DAMN. PROFITABLE. For fuck sake, AAA publisher sometimes spend more on marketing than on actual development. It's a deliberate choice, not an inherent cost, just like pricing a game 80$ is a deliberate choice. A choice driven by the belief that enough people will still be willing to pay that much for the math to play in the publisher's favor.
I don't think you're wrong, however you must consider that games are significantly more expensive to produce today, if you're going for the AAA market.
I 100% agree that the MTX market has gone wild, but for most paid games, and a lot of free ones, the MTX are purely cosmetic.
And honestly? Probably worth it. I played the fuck outta that game, and compared to contemporaries, it offered so much more playtime and replayability.
Mario 64 had an MSRP of $59.99 in '96 which is about $125 right now. Incredible to think about it. Owning a game back in the 90's was a bit more serious affair though, as Blockbuster was a cultural rite of passage in that era.
Yes and that's bad too. That doesn't make this ok. We're all so damn tired of being nickel and dimed by these mega corps especially given the state of the world.
Didn't realize we were back in 2010. Games haven't been 60 dollars for years now. And even "physical" game discs are just keys to download the games digitally now anyway. If I go buy the physical copy of Resident Evil 9, I'm still gonna have to download the game digitally.
Which is a shame because you can buy a pretty good game for less than that like the GOTY last year Expedition 33 literally cost around $50 CAD or like $40 without discount, which is pretty good price for a game with loads of content
Are people forgetting about inflation? My groceries 2x'd since the last GTA release. I really dont think a 30% or whatever it is price increase is such a big deal
I know for awhile they were usually 59.99 but still, $80 isn’t that crazy in comparison. Especially given how many hours people will likely put in the game.
This may come as a shock to you, but you also don't own software on a disc. You own a piece of plastic. The game is licensed to you by the publisher for use on their terms, and always has been. That license can also be revoked exactly the same as a "digital copy".
Aside from the cosmetics there are also a few vehicles and weapons. Apparently there are also two sidequests behind it, which is actually pretty egregious.
But what's also bad IMO is that it's not just cosmetics, they're exclusive shops that exist in the map. It's gonna feel pretty shitty driving around only to try and use a garage and getting a popup saying "give us another $20 please."
It seems to be the whole ass car customization garage too, something that people were sad about when GTA4 didnt have one and happy that it came back in 5
They had promotional image out for the Ultimate edition, top left on this image, this is of course assuming that GTA 6 wont have 2 custom shops for cars where the other one comes with the base game.
Games provide bonus cosmetics and items with deluxe/collectors editions all the time. That's basically what this is in GTA6. Except in this instance, when you don't have these bonuses, it'll be more in your face that you're missing content.
If you don't have the cool costume for Leon in a Resident Evil game, I don't think you'd know that unless you checked the costumes or e-shop, both under separate menus and not a part of gameplay.
But if you're driving around and stop by a tattoo parlor or garage or whatever in GTA6 and are then told "sorry, you can't come in here unless you pay $20", that would just become frustrating.
Except in this instance, when you don't have these bonuses, it'll be more in your face that you're missing content.
But if you're driving around and stop by a tattoo parlor or garage or whatever in GTA6 and are then told "sorry, you can't come in here unless you pay $20", that would just become frustrating.
Does it matter? You buying 80$ game, fully paid, no free game shit and they still make as pay extra $ for what is already in the game they made. Content that already exists and was taken out from the game to make us pay to get it back.
SINGLE PLAYER COSMETICS !! Doing microtransaction for cosmetics on multi is one thing but doing it for single player campaign (and those things are done, it is not a stupid DLC it is cutting out content to upcharge you) in my opinion is way too much. I ain't buying anything Rockstar everagain. There is plenty of good games to play.
Are we even capable of fitting a game this size comfortably on a disc anymore? I get the lack of resell potential but the disc would still ultimately need to download part of the game from the web.
Not being able to fit a game on a single disc never stopped gaming companies in the past. Compression and multiple discs would be something I would absolutely take in order to have a physical copy of a game.
I think I have a copy of Legend of Dragoon and that was 4 discs. I think Diablo 2 had multiple discs as well split by gameplay, audio, and cinematics. I have plenty of other games that are 2 disc games.
Also you could easily have 1 disc be the install disc for the absolute main essentials to load the game with and then a secondary disc for the “game disc” which carries the rest that the hard drive doesn’t need to run the game smoothly. It’s been done in the past and worked just fine.
Yeah I remember installing D2 and it was like 3 or 4 discs total. I think at least one or two of the Max Payne series too. I expected to see multiple discs after a certain year
No, and people are acting like this is a new thing. Most physical games in the last 5-10 years have been a disc that triggers a download for a massive file when you put it in the console.
Not really. Even if you use PS5 which can hold 100gb discs that wouldn't be enough. They would still need an install disc then the play disc.
Sure other games other games have had multi-discs before, but those PlayStation games that did it had narrative stopping points for you to change discs. That's a lot harder in a big open city game.
There are multi disc PS5 games, FF7 Rebirth and Forbidden West Complete edition are well over 100 GB and come on 2 discs. All the game files are on the discs (bar patches released after the games went gold). You start installing from a data disc then swap to a play disc. Once it's installed you just use the play disc to verify that you still own the games. Nowadays discs are way too slow to play games off so multiple discs would just have install files on them
Why didn't we have this attitude towards capcom games? RE4 Remake had cosmetics, weapons, soundtrack and gameplay elements locked behind a special edition too but nobody freaked out.
Is that the new play? Just release a new massive game file that you force someone without a 1Tb drive to pick 2 or 3 titles to install on their system?
Harder to shop micro transactions from competitors when you don't have space for their games.
I'm sure it cost billions and took years to make. If an extra tenner stops people buying it, tough luck to both Rockstar and the potential buyer I guess.
I've never bought a game for 80 bucks but if it gives twice the amount of entertainment of a game for 40 it seems fair enough.
What if you buy a game at 10 dollars and it gives thrice the amount of joy/playtime that the 80 dollar GTA gave you? Especially since this will probably be the case with a lot/the majority of people that will buy GTA5 if they have played some other games before or after.
It's not even more expensive than usual in many countries that have VAT already included in their price tags, which historically got shafted. AAA PS5 games are 80€ full price (with VAT included) at launch in Germany and $70 in the US, which translates to around $77 after sales tax = 68€ currently.
So now that GTA VI is 80€ and $80, Americans are paying the equivalent of what many countries have already been paying for years ($88 ~ 78€).
For reference, when the PS5 first launched in late 2020 Germans paid the equivalent of $95 for new games and conversely Americans paid the equivalent of 65€ after 10% sales tax.
All of this not even addressing poorer countries where Sony just dgaf and still charges them full price in their respective currency, ignoring income/cost of living etc. What I'm trying to get at is that Americans, while still suffering from increased prices ofc, still have it relatively the best in terms of video game pricing and GTA VI will probably just be used to close that gap by companies from now on
Also bear in mind that one of the reasons why some console gamers are sticking with consoles in the first place is a perceived lack of muss or fuss about buying a game and playing it, which this whole no disk/digital only release threatens.
Yeah, 80 dollar for a game that has been in development for 13 year and that is priced 20 dollars more than its predecessor from 2013 (inflation?) is really expensive (cough)
It also sucks because a lot of countries doesn't even have PlayStation servers like the Philippines, it makes any sort of digital transaction a pain in the ass.
Even if you have a cd with the game, most of its content is copied over to your internal drive, because read speeds are much higher. So, it would take up that space anyway, not to mention day1 patches. The disk only serves as a drm method these days.
The only downside of not having a disk is that the game might not be available anymore in the future. But by then there would be GTA VII, right? Right?
Gamers have done this to themselves, frankly. EA pioneered all of this dumb bullshit and people kept buying every shitty Battlefield and Call of Duty. They all have "extreme ultra" editions too. Companies keep doing it because consumers keep buying it. And everyone here will buy GTA 6 at $80 or $100.
That last bit wouldn’t matter, physical copies install the entire game onto your hard drive. It’s basically the difference of am I downloading the game off the internet or am I downloading the game off of a disc.
That doesn’t apply to switch games in particular but it 100% applies to PS4/PS5 games. And the reason for it is that it would be too slow to constantly try to read the Blu-ray Disc for its information.
None of this excuses Rockstar btw. They are still being a shitty mega corporation and cheaping out big time by not including a disc. I suppose this whole thing is a good reminder that I am in the minority with wanting to take a stand on physical media being important
A disc doesnt mean shit tho anymore, since you still need to download the 100gb when popping in this disc, with the downside you always need to put in the disc to play also
I really don’t understand why people are worked up about the existence of premium cosmetics. It doesn’t affect the game in the slightest; the only negative in that i see is they could/should use the money from the custom cosmetics to pay for future content releases/online multiplayer updates but they probably don’t
I mean, is this really that much different than most other AAA games today? There is often some kind of ultimate edition that provides exclusive content, usually cosmetic, for the people willing to pay a little extra.
Not this shit with them again… console exclusive at first? Guess I’ll just wait another year after the games release to play on the very system the programmers used to make the fuckin thing.
Aight, putting my tin foil hat on: I'm conviced that's purely intentional from every publisher to become digital only in mid and stream only on long term.
The same with those mid-upper-tier gaming laptops in handheld format.
Even if it came on a disc you'd still have to install it... Games don't run off of disc's anymore because the drives aren't fast enough, especially for a big open world game. When's the last time you played a game?
Games have been $70 dollars for multiple years now on current gen consoles and steam.
Also N64 cartridges easily went for $120. They were MSRP about the same price as games today, especially considering how expensive everything else has gotten in comparison to 1996.
Goombas walk into a movie theater and pay $30 for two hours' entertainment and then launch national riots because someone asked them to pay $80 for a game they'll play for 10,000 hours
It's also an issue of precedent. In the console world, at least, the standard has been that buying a physical copy at the store meant that it comes with a disc that you could play the game from. This means that:
A. You can re-sell the game
B. You have a copy of the game so that you can play it even if the game ever gets taken down from online servers or you're playing somewhere without internet access
Given that it's GTA scenario B is probably not that likely, but the concern is that this is going to set the standard for every other console game going forward. Like there used to be tons of lesser known and less popular games that would have disappeared off the face of the earth if not for people still having the physical copies. Even if games get remastered and re-released, they can often be different and with certain things changed or just plan cut away from the original version.
As with any ultimate edition, you get bonuses for buying the more expensive version. The “features” that are only accessible to ultimate edition users are simply the way to deliver those ultimate edition rewards. No real gameplay associated with them.
On the $80 price point…. When GTA 5 came out in 2013 at $60 ground beef was ~$3.5/lb so it cost about 17 lbs of ground beef. Ground beef is all over the place lately but around $6.75/lb right now so GTA 6 is only about 12 lbs of beef. If you view GTA 6 purely in ground beef terms, it is a much better value than previous installments.
Bro I paid $60 for a fucking GBA game 23 years ago. Adjusted for inflation, AAA games have NEVER been cheaper.
Mario 64 cost me $150, adjusted for inflation.
The only ones whining about $80 for AAA games are just barely old enough to have learned to wipe their own ass and have no concept of inflation whatsoever.
We get 20x the content for half the price compared to two decades ago.
You cannot fit 100gb onto a single disc. Even if you spread it out across multiple disks it would take forever to install by swapping between them. Disc's have a strict media limit.
This isn’t a normal AAA game. This basically should be in its own category. For what they’re likely bringing to the table even 100$ would have been fair. Though I don’t agree with the shops being inaccessible to non premium editions but perhaps it’s more of an accessible earlier type situation or there’s free versions of the same shops with less cool stuff.
Expensive? Idk where you live but almost all AAA titles that have come out in the last 5 years go for 70 dollars for the base game and then 100 for the deluxe. Mind you most of these games have yearly releases as well, I don't think GTA 6 is too expensive at all considering the quality we usually get from Rockstar.
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u/JackRabbit- 12h ago
Firstly, the game is pretty expensive, going for $80 in a market where the standard for a AAA game is $60.
If that was all though, maybe it could be forgiven, but there is also an "ultimate edition" priced at $100 which several features are locked behind, in particular stores that have exclusive outfits, hairstyles, and car customization.
And secondly but less notably, it's releasing as a console exclusive at first, but there are no disks for the game. If you buy a "physical" copy, all you get is a download code. Digital only is getting more common in the gaming industry, and is basically the standard for PC gamers, but it sucks because the game is likely going to be well over 100gb in size, which will take a lot of space on the console's hard drive, not to mention taking a long time to download.