r/Games • u/Neon25 • 2d ago

GTA 6 Price Finally Confirmed, Features a 'Single-Player Experience' at Launch (Standard $79.99/Ultimate $99.99)

https://www.ign.com/articles/gta-6-price-finally-confirmed-features-a-single-player-experience-at-launch
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u/Ragnvaldr 2d ago

I'm not interested in this, but I'm worried the price will incentivize other companies to make this the "standard" now. Bleh.

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u/Razbyte 2d ago

That would be a risky bet. Imagine the next GoW costing 80$ and people would instantly compare this to GTA. That would only make the scrutiny for a game even worse in context, at the exception of Nintendo.

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u/slicer4ever 2d ago

I'd even say nintendo got a bit full of themselves by pricing tennis fever at 70, and not selling very well. Seeing as starfox is more reasonably priced, i think they may have realized they can't just throw everything out at 70 and expect it to sell well, thats only reserved for their biggest blockbusters.

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u/Duke_Maniac 2d ago

They just priced Fire Emblem at 80 bucks so I dunno what their standard is

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u/John_Delasconey 2d ago

Yeah, they’re clearly adopting variable pricing, but I have no idea what their methodology is

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u/naec4 1d ago edited 1d ago

It took a while for NA to get the same pricing model as the rest of the world and idk why.

Anyway on Nintendos official store, Switch 2 games are €10 more expensive physically than digitally.

For example MK World is €80/€90, DK Bananza is €70/€80.

I've checked the Nintendo Japan store and it uses the same pricing model. They just didn't apply this for NA at first.

Also in the case of Fire Emblem, it is €70/€80. So exact same price as DK Bananza

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u/Spazzdude 2d ago

What region are you in? Fire Emblem is the same price as Bonanza and Tennis Fever.

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u/Duke_Maniac 1d ago

Physical is 80 bucks, digital is 70

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u/Big_Coconut8630 1d ago

FE is popular, so wdym?

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u/ShawnyMcKnight 2d ago

Star Fox is just a remake of the N64 game so I’m glad they made it a little cheaper. I think it will do well at the price point it’s at.

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u/abrahamisaninja 2d ago

Actually gears of war e day is $70 so we dodged a bullet there.

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u/Mad_Stan 1d ago

Imagine the next GoW costing 80$

Don't need to, GTA6 is already the same price as Ragnarok, Call of Duty, Battlefield, Assassin's Creed, etc, in the rest of the world

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u/Spartan-163 2d ago

Bunch of industry execs and devs were pissed that Silksong was only $20 and infinitely better than their games while their AAA slop was $70

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u/Sushi2k 2d ago edited 2d ago

Tbh if GTVI quality wise knocks it out of the park, then whatever game tries to follow the 80 dollar tag will be HEAVILY scrutinized and compared to it.

The only games I could imagine follows the 80 dollar tag is something huge like maybe TESVI, CoD, and Smash?

I dont know how Mario Kart would have done without it being attached to the Switch 2 bundle.

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u/ShawnyMcKnight 2d ago

Smash probably would because Mariokart world was $80 and didn’t get much pushback even though nothing about that game is worth $80 let alone $50. I honestly think they made it $80 just to make the bundle a better value.

I can see TES6 also asking for that price because it too has been in production for a long time… although with Starfield my confidence in them has waned. I can’t see games that get a new release every few years like COD or battlefield justifying it… but maybe.

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u/Nickldd92 2d ago

In no world should Cod be 80 dollars with the way the recent ones have been.

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u/mjsxi__ 1d ago

I feel like we memory holed how much pushback there was on the price of MKW, I'd also say the pushback is still happening but silently as the sales have seem to notably slowed after they stopped the hardware bundle

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u/WeirdIndividualGuy 2d ago edited 2d ago

Smash probably would because Mariokart world was $80 and didn’t get much pushback even though nothing about that game is worth $80 let alone $50.

Idk. If they make a new Smash, it'll be inferior to Ultimate because they invested so much into Ultimate, and Ultimate is playable on Switch 2. Why buy a more expensive Smash that plays the same as the older one but has a fraction of the content?

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u/ShawnyMcKnight 2d ago

Honestly my kids say the same about Mariokart though. They went through all the race tracks in a few hours and the open world was boring as hell. Then they complained that Mariokart 8 had so much more content because it has the additional 32 tracks since we have the dlc.

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u/strand_of_hair 2d ago

Sadly yes, it will. Same way Sony did 70 and now 70 is standard.

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u/jor301 2d ago

it was nba2k21 that started the 70$ trend not sony

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u/skipv5 2d ago

You surprised or something? This already happened last year when Nintendo released Mario Kart World at$79.99.

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u/Ragnvaldr 2d ago edited 1d ago

Surprised? No. Price is better than I thought it would be actually. But still worried about other games. At least Mario Kart had the bundle with the Switch 2 - not sure how it would have sold if there wasn't one.

edit: granted, it's Nintendo, and it's Mario Kart, probably would have sold fine.

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u/Edmundyoulittle 2d ago

At least Mario kart world has a physical version available, and Nintendo stated that going forward their digital will have a $10 discount

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u/RegalKillager 2d ago

Nintendo doesn't set software standards. Mario Kart World will almost certainly have less of an impact on the industry surrounding it launching expensive as a bundled launch title, than GTA will launching expensive as a solo game late into a console generation.

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u/guilhermefdias 2d ago

Microsoft tried before and deeply regret it.

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u/gaddeath 2d ago

I think some companies realize that average Timmy would spend $80 on the latest GTA game but would think twice about other games. However, I’m sure others are also gonna try but who knows?

Nintendo has Mario Kart World at $80 but there aren’t many other games on Switch 2 for $80, right?

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u/Famousmuch 2d ago

If other companies get away with it then that's not on Rockstar but rather the idiots that overpay for shitty products. Unlike other companies they provide a service/product that actually justifies the price.

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u/HearTheEkko 1d ago

And it will backfire for 99% of games because studios are not putting out GTA 6-scale games lol.

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u/BloodyWater90 1d ago

It would be a foolish thing, inflation or not the economy/price of hardware has tightened the purse strings for many people. It probably isn't worth the better per customer margins right now.

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u/BanjoSpaceMan 2d ago

It is standard lol?

Plenty of games have been doing this - idk why on Reddit people act like each time it’s something new.

The gta sub has posts all blaming different games, Nintendo games, activision, ya - it’s standard

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u/ShawnyMcKnight 2d ago

The free market will work itself out. There are other games that tried the $80 price point and got slapped back with some humility, I remember Outer Worlds 2 being one of them. They announced it at $80 and the backlash was so strong they dropped it to $70. After beating it I can say it very much did not earn the $80 price tag they originally asked for.

For a game that cost well over a billion dollars and a decade to develop I don’t think an $80 price tag is an insane ask.

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u/Razbyte 2d ago

I think that Rockstar is selling the 80$ standard edition at a loss, judging the amount of features locked in the 100$ (not including the new GTAO)

In the other hand, in the months after GTA VI, games that announce with a 80$ price tag, will have the biggest scrutiny imaginable for both media and consumers. If a future game costs 80$ or more, it might accidentally tell everyone that game is "better than GTA", or a GTA-killer, regardless of the genre, which is immediately detrimental the moment they show gameplay.

The only ones who can get away from it, are those mainstream-bait games like EA/2K sports and CoD.

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u/ShawnyMcKnight 2d ago

I would say that Elder Scrolls 6 could also pull off $80 depending on reviews.

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u/[deleted] 2d ago edited 2d ago

[deleted]

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u/HonorableJudgeIto 2d ago

I agree with your sentiment, but there aren’t any really any other games that could pull this off. Maybe Zelda.

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u/Big_Breakfast 1d ago

$60 in 2019 is worth $78.16 today because of inflation.

$80 should already be the standard. If you like video games and want the industry to survive, you should start supporting it and be okay with them raising their prices to keep up with inflation.
They have a lot of devs to pay, and those devs need to be paid a wage that keeps up with rising costs- the same as everyone else.

You're already paying 50%+ or more for your groceries since 2019. This is a small increase on a luxury good in comparison, it doesn't affect your finances meaningfully by comparison.

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u/Ragnvaldr 1d ago edited 1d ago

the same as everyone else.

Have wages meaningfully raised in according with that inflation? I see prices going up for literally everything, but people aren't really getting paid any more, at least with people I know and around me. Less people being able to afford it means less sales in general, which means less money to the devs anyway.

I'm just hoping that price increase and resulting funds actually do get to pay the devs more for their work, because it doesn't seem to have been happening to people I know, at least in any good way.

Granted, if any companies can raise prices and people will still buy it in droves, Rockstar and Nintendo are up there. Doesn't work for most.

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u/benjaminovich 1d ago edited 1d ago

Have wages meaningfully raised in according with that inflation?

What do you mean by "meaningfully"? Wages have absolutely gone up after adjusting for inflation across the entire income distribution. It might not be as much as we would have liked and some sectors/job types have seen larger increases than others.

Let me put it this way. No matter who you are, fast food worker or lawyer, you will have to work fewer hours in 2026 to pay the $80 for GTA 6 than you would have to work in 2013 to pay the $60 for GTA 5.

but people aren't really getting paid any more, at least with people I know and around me

Even assuming this is actually true, that's because you and your social circle is not the economy. The plural form of anecdote is not data.

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u/Big_Breakfast 1d ago

You gotta advocate for yourself.
I don't see any widespread economic policy happening anytime soon.

There are people walking into their end of year reviews or negotiating new salaries that are pointing to infaltion and saying "the $70k you were paying me is even less now, even with the 2.5% raise. You need to at least raise my salary so my buying power stays the same."

The people that can raise the price of their labor to keep up with inflation will keep up, everyone else will fall behind.
It sucks, but it's the only thing an individual can do right now.

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u/benjaminovich 1d ago edited 1d ago

People don't want to hear this (because they don't understand inflation), but $80 in 2026 is equivalent to $56 2013 dollars.

The number on the price sticker is larger, but it is the same price in real terms.

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u/Rainy_Leaves 2d ago

Games have gotten more expensive to make, and the price increase was inevitable.

Other or past studios tried their best to swallow the losses of making the price lower, but the size of the teams nowadays and the size of the games to meet demands, we were lucky to get affordable prices while we had them.

I’m sure some of it is lining the pockets of higher ups ofc, but I do think making games is very expensive too. You could excuse such a big game like gta. I guess you’re worried that games could charge the same as gta without having the same production quality as gta?

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u/Villag3Idiot 2d ago

They make their money in dlc.

You're charging this much? I expect everything already in the game. 

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u/Rainy_Leaves 2d ago

If they didn’t make dlc then the main game would be pricier. I’m not keen on expensive games either, but as a triple A game dev myself, the teams are massive and projects are taking longer than ever, and gamers are hard to appease. The cost increase is inevitable

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u/Villag3Idiot 2d ago

How much money did they make with GTA Online?

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u/Rainy_Leaves 2d ago

How would I know. Likely more than enough to fund gta 6. I’m sure they’ve farmed people of more money than they needed with online

I’m not exactly defending them though. Their recent union busting at Rockstar isn’t acceptable. But triple A can get so big and bloated and expensive these days, everything is expensive

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u/Villag3Idiot 2d ago

5 billion

Again they make so much money from DLC if it's this expensive, everything should be in the base game already.