GTA 6 price must feel ‘very reasonable,’ Take Two boss says

The comments come amid months of speculation that the new Grand Theft Auto could retail for $100

With Rockstar Games's May 21 earnings call just weeks away, speculation about Grand Theft Auto 6 is once again reaching a simmer. Will the game be delayed from its Nov. 19 release date? What's happening with Grand Theft Auto Online? How much "adult content" can we expect? In recent months, pricing has been one of the most consistent topics of GTA 6 speculation. Industry insiders have speculated that GTA 6 could command an ultra-premium price tag of $100. But the CEO of Rockstar parent company Take-Two Interactive has seemingly suggested the price will be closer to that of current AAA offerings.

Speaking to attendees of the iicon conference, a new games industry event in Las Vegas, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick seemed to discourage speculation about a $100 price point. "Consumers pay for the value that you bring to them, and our job is to charge way, way, way less of the value delivery," Zelnick said (via IGN). "How you feel about something you buy is the intersection of the thing itself and what you pay for. Consumers need to feel like the thing itself is amazing, and the price they were charged was fair for what they got."

Zelnick also mentioned that game prices have largely remained static in the $60-$70 range for more than a decade, defying inflation trends elsewhere. "If you look at it through that lens, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But that isn’t the lens through which we look," he said. "Instead, we look at… how do we deliver something amazing, and how do we make sure that what people pay for it feels very reasonable."

This emphasis on "value" echoes comments Zelnick made during an interview with Variety back in August, when he said that Take-Two's goal in setting game prices is "to deliver more value than what we charge." Elsewhere in that interview, he also alluded to the industry strategy of having multiple SKUs of the same game, which launch for a "premium price, sometimes with special editions." Given the widespread adoption of this strategy, it seems like a safe bet that there will be multiple versions of GTA 6 at various price points.

Zelnick's latest comments come amid signs that players are less willing to pay $80 or more for a single game than publishers might have hoped. Back in July, Xbox reversed plans to charge $80 for The Outer Worlds 2, rolling the price back to $70. Earlier this month, Xbox also slashed the price of its top-tier subscription offering, Game Pass Ultimate, after customers balked at the $30 monthly cost. Even the usually discount-averse Nintendo announced in March that digital copies of its games would be $10 cheaper than physical versions, several months after pricing both versions of Switch 2 launch title Mario Kart World at $80.

While it's unlikely that we'll get details on pricing for GTA 6 during the May 21 Take-Two earnings call, we will get confirmation about whether the game is going to hit that November release date. It's been a long wait, but there's light at the end of the tunnel.