Grand Theft Auto 6 – Analysts Believe $100 For a Base Game Would be Too Much

gamingbolt.com:

While the future release of Grand Theft Auto 6 is still shrouded in quite a bit of mystery, analysts have been having a field day with speculation on how much the game would cost. Epyllion’s Matthew Ball, for instance, believed that Grand Theft Auto 6 would be the first game to be priced at $100 for its base edition.

Several analysts have since taken to social media against this idea, however. Circana’s Mat Piscatella, for instance, believes that this kind of price hike just isn’t a move that Rockstar needs to make, since it would raise the barrier of entry and be counter-intuitive to the studio’s goal of having as many people as possible play the game.

“There’s no need to make the base price of any game $100,” posted Piscatella on Bluesky. “Special editions, collector’s editions, gold/silver editions, etc etc do the same thing, and a high % of day 1 buyers jump on those at their elevated price points. There’s just no need.”

“You want to make the funnel as wide as possible, while also optimizing launch $,” he continued. “You don’t do this [by] making the base price of a game so high that the funnel narrows. It just makes no sense. At all.”

Piscatella’s point about several major game releases already being priced at $100 through collector’s editions and early access were also echoed by MIDia’s Rhys Elliot, who points out that the industry has begun essentially delaying access to players that don’t want to spend $100 on a game.

“Most huge AAA games already charge $100 (sometimes more) in the first 3-7 days before launch, but they call it ‘early access’ and slap ‘collector’s edition’ in the name,” said Elliot to IGN. “Publishers have hijacked collector’s editions as a way to charge more for ‘early access’ – AKA delayed access for those consumers unwilling to pay the markup.”

Elliot also called pricing a game at $100 for its basic edition “a bridge too far”.

“They’d find success either way,” he said. “GTA 6 is going to be a cultural phenomenon and could bear a $100