Grand Theft Auto 6 is already expected to be one of the biggest entertainment launches ever, but now the pricing debate is getting panas.
According to GamesRadar, Bank of America analyst Omar Dessouky has argued that Take-Two should price GTA 6 at US$80, partly because it could give the rest of the games industry permission to move beyond the usual US$70 AAA ceiling. The comment came after his team attended the iicon conference in Las Vegas, with a note saying some attendees believed the industry would struggle to sell US$80 games if GTA 6 itself launched at US$70.
In simple gamer terms: if Rockstar charges more, everyone else can point at GTA 6 and say, “See? This is the new normal.”
That is a huge deal for Malaysian and SEA players. A US$70 game is already around RM330 before platform pricing, taxes, payment fees, or exchange-rate pain. Push that to US$80 and you are looking at roughly RM380. For players who buy one or two massive games a year, maybe still boleh tahan. But for students, younger working adults, and anyone already juggling subscriptions, battle passes, gacha pulls, and hardware costs, that extra jump is not nothing.
Dessouky’s argument is that Take-Two has an interest in raising the benchmark because it is not just a publisher, but also a partner to many developers. The idea is that a higher GTA 6 price could help the wider AAA market, especially at a time when the industry is often described as struggling despite giant publishers still moving massive amounts of money.
The more eyebrow-raising part? The Bank of America view also suggests players may accept higher prices because AI is making games more valuable. That is a strange angle for GTA 6 specifically, because Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has reportedly said there is no AI involved in GTA 6. On top of that, gamers have not exactly been cheering whenever AI-generated content shows up in games. If anything, many players get suspicious fast when AI is mentioned around premium releases.
Zelnick has also spoken about pricing in terms of value, but not in the way this argument makes it sound. His public position has been that Take-Two aims to charge far less than the value players get from its games. That is a very different message from “let’s use GTA 6 to raise the whole industry’s price floor.”
To be fair, there is a real economic point here: when adjusted for inflation, games are not as expensive as they used to be decades ago. But that argument can feel a bit syok sendiri when normal players are dealing with today’s cost of living. In Malaysia and across SEA, the issue is not just the sticker price of the game. It is the full cost of entry.
GTA 6 is expected to be a major system seller, especially on PS5. But if someone still has to buy a current-gen console, pay for online services, and then drop close to RM400 on one game, the total bill gets scary very quickly. That is before even talking about special editions, DLC, or in-game monetisation if any appears later.
For Rockstar, GTA 6 is probably one of the few games that could survive an US$80 launch. The brand is just that powerful. Plenty of players will still buy it day one, no cap. But if GTA 6 becomes the excuse for every big publisher to raise prices across the board, SEA players will feel it hard.
The real question is not whether GTA 6 is “worth” US$80. For many fans, it might be. The question is whether one monster launch should reset expectations for everyone else. Because once RM380 becomes normal for standard editions, going back down will be almost impossible.
Source: GamesRadar