Judging by all the shark card crap they jammed into the last GTA, I fully expect them to shovel a bunch of crap in to make more money: $70 base games, deluxe editions, DLC, micro transactions, social club integration, required internet connections, all of it.
What’s with half the commenters acting like GTA V isn’t a great game?
Y’all know GTA Online is a different game technically, yeah? The single player of GTA V is still there and even better now that Enhanced is on PC. Rockstar didn’t fuck Up RDR2s single-player Mode so why assume they would on this?
Even GTA Online was fantastic. There’s so much to do and the heists and races were a lot of fun. I think I had more fun playing online than in the single player mode. I definitely put more time into it.
Shark cards never bothered me because I never got one.
Companies need to grow a spine. Good games sell regardless of what’s out. If your confidence in your own game is so low that you’d push it to a slow release date, it’s probably not worth playing anyway.
The two Horizon games picked really shitty weeks to release on lol. I think that’s done significant damage to the player base. They’re not groundbreaking games, but still extremely well done (imo)
I don’t know about that one. Games are expensive these days and if your game releases anywhere near the rumored $100 GTA 6, a LOT of people are going to have to choose one or the other, and it’s very unlikely that in most cases they don’t choose GTA6, literally the most anticipated video game of the last decade. Sure you can always buy the smaller game later, but a huge part of the sales of video games is the opening week, when all the hype around it has had time to come to a head, and you’re influenced by the fact that lots of other people are playing it.
Yeah good games will always sell SOME copies. But if you thinking that a game even releasing in the same month as GTA6 won’t have a permanent impact on that games sales, you’re smoking the reefer.
if you thinking that a game even releasing in the same month as GTA6 won’t have a permanent impact on that games sales, you’re smoking the reefer.
Maybe they should stop trying to peddle bland-ass live service games that live and die by their players numbers then. A good solo game might take a hit to its initial sales but should recover in the long run.
A good solo game might take a hit to its initial sales but should recover in the long run.
It won’t though. This feel-good theory that if a game is “good” then it’ll just make the same amount of money it always would have otherwise is not supported by any real world evidence. And even the most hypothetically high quality, ethical, game making company is still a company in the end, and companies need to money to pay living wages and keep people employed making new games. And if the games they are putting out are high quality, they probably have competent leadership. And competent leadership isn’t going to gamble the future of their company and livelihoods of their employees on an unproven feel-good fantasy espoused only by people on Reddit and Lemmy who’ve never run a business before.
If the game is good, doesnt need an active playerbase to survive (ie isn’t entirely based on multiplayer), and the company is already reputable, it has no reasons to not sell decently in the long run. Also if an (already established) company’s future is jeopardized by a single game not doing well, I’m sorry but it’s not well managed. Ask me how I know.
That’s just not how these things work. Launch windows have a documented history of being uniquely impactful to the long term success of games, movies, even products. It would take some serious evidence to the contrary for you to claim otherwise.
Also if an (already established) company’s future is jeopardized by a single game not doing well, I’m sorry but it’s not well managed. Ask me how I know.
That’s not really here nor there. It also isn’t really true.
I think what you’re saying is true but perhaps you’re both talking about different things. I think you’re speaking about the reality of the situation whereas the comment OP is talking about the risk averse nature of large game studios. I don’t think it’s the same thing.
Also, I think I’m part of a growing minority but if gta 6 reviews are bad I’m not buying it until I hear it’s been fixed. I’ve been burned so many times 😭
I’m buying it regardless of reviews. Which are gonna be amazing anyway but still. I paid full price for Forspoken and actually really enjoyed it. I like the Kojima attitude of (for him it was a bookstore) picking something blindly that calls out to you. It might be amazing, it might be shit, but you learn something from everything you engage with. I just like the surprise of trying something I’ve got a lukewarm interest in and enjoying it a lot. Horizon Lego Adventures and Lost Records Bloom and Rage impressed me recently
Course I play games to play them, not complain about them online all day. And most of the time I enjoy what I find
It’s the exact same thing actually. Their claim was:
Good games will sell regardless of what’s out
But that’s just not true, and game studios of all sizes know that. The risk aversion of these companies exist because of the reality of the situation.
It also has nothing to do with a studios confidence in their game. The quality of a game is light years away from being the sole objective indicator of a games sales. The Outer Wilds is objectively one of the greatest games ever made and has no real peers in what it does. And yet it didn’t make nearly the sales numbers as the latest asset flipped Call of Duty game.
The Outer Wilds was a first game from an indie studio. On this basis alone it was practically guaranteed to not get the success it deserved. And it does deserve a ton of it.
Conversely, call of duty is literally one of the most notorious franchises in the entire industry, and pretty much sells on its name alone.
A good observation. Hence why one of those games can afford to launch during a crowded window despite its lack of quality, and the other, despite their confidence in their work, and the high quality of their work, could not. You’re starting to get it now.
You cant trust reviews. For example dragon’s dogma 2 which i just picked up is a great game. But some people wouldn’t know it based a lot of criticism and bad reviews it recieved when it launched.
I’d pay over $100 for GTA6 personally. And microtransactions aren’t out of the question for me either. I don’t have nearly as much time as money these days. Not that I have a lot of money, but I’ll pay it if it makes the experience better
You have no time, but plenty of money, so you are willing to spend extra money just for the sake of having no time AND no money? Get that corpo dick out of your mouth.
Even if I was a millionaire I wouldn’t want my games to have micro transactions in them. It’s not about the cost, it’s about the fact that as soon as micro transactions are included in the game, the game instantly becomes all about pushing those microtransactions, to the detriment of the gameplay.
Also you are mad if you prepare to pay $100 for GTA VI especially because we all know that it’ll be discounted at some point.
Yeah, the Witcher 3 release should have taught the game publishers this. CDPR delayed the launch by several months because the game wasn’t ready to ship yet. And the game was phenomenal, and received rave reviews pretty much across the board. Gamers were disappointed about the launch, but basically went “this game will be worth the wait.”
I’d argue that is just another example of why delaying games isn’t a bad thing. 2077 clearly wasn’t ready at launch, and would have benefitted from a delayed launch.
I feel like that one was also due to awful development practices, they had the whole scrapping the entire first 2 years of work thing due to a control freak lead dev who was ultimately releaved of his position (though not until after release iirc)
I wouldn’t call it a success yet. I just started playing it for the first time yesterday and I have already fallen through the floor twice and the camera was broken causing seizure inducing visuals in one of the cutscenes.
You realize that rockstar basically invented this strategy right? Almost every release since vice city or San Andreas has been delayed by 6 months to a year to be the best game possible.
Sure you can argue standard practice has been and should be to deliver a finished game first and foremost. But in the context of modern gaming and setting release dates, Rockstar has historically been unafraid to change a release date to make a better game. But yes before the internet and the ability to patch a game it was standard to make sure your game didn’t suck before letting it loose.
And my comment was more to point out that using CDPR as a shining beacon of consistently solid game releases is laughable, especially when comparing them to Rockstar.
While at one point GTA was my favorite series and I was absolutely hyped for GTA V, I’m not for this one. I kind of feel like I’m getting a little old for GTA.
Maybe I’ll change my mind after it releases and there’s a good chance I’ll play it anyway, but right now… meh.
This will probably be the last time it ever happens. They’re trying to get people to double dip, and plenty will, but the console install base isn’t what it was when GTA V came out at the end of a generation. Plus we all know full well that the PC version will happen, whereas in yesteryear, we weren’t sure.
If we were just talking PlayStation I would say 97% is near enough to make no difference but if we compare both platforms together its only 67% and that is enough to influence strategy. A console only release in 2025 is unlikely to eclipse GTA5’s position as “fastest-selling entertainment product in history”.
But also don’t forget that the amount of gamers is larger today than in 2013. Gaming is much more mainstream, and so even 97% of the install base is still disappointing considering steam grew by, what, 3x or something in terms of average monthly users?
Another source I found is that the amount of total gamers grew by roughly 50% from 2013 to 2025. But yeah, I just did a quick skin numbers are not precise
But still, 97% is disappointing considering the general demographic was supposed to grow. And then, in reality, it’s just 67% too
Because I don’t want to play full price for a 1080p upscaled experience at 30fps. If it’s a good experience then it will be worth the wait and that much better when it runs smoother, looks better, and loads faster. Plus it will have most of the bugs worked by then.
Well, to be fair, you don’t know you’re getting it for that. As far as I’ve seen, they haven’t announced the release price yet. And a lot of studios are hoping that Rockstar will take the fall for being the first $100 game so publishers can start charging used console prices for AAA games from then on.
Either way though, I won’t be paying anything for it.
You hope you’ll get those things. It’s Rockstar though so who really knows. I mean we do know we’re going to get a single player that’s been confirmed by Rockstar but everything else is just a guess. The map leak people seem to suggest that the map will include NASA and Disneyland which will be cool I guess, but we don’t know that that’s just a prediction and I don’t quite understand how they can predict that.
I just don’t trust Rockstar not to screw it up with GTA online 2, now with more irritating flying bikes
Based on what? You don’t actually know until it gets released. Sure, past history and reputation are certainly things to factor in, but we’ve seen plenty of major gaming companies shit the bed, despite their reputations.
I’m responding to a comment assuming it’ll be nothing but a “pay to win” game, despite any real evidence of that - I’m pointing out the expectations of GTA VI.
This sub is like Reddit on steroids. Just a bunch of contrarian kids trying to start arguments on the internet. Bizarre.
They want $100 for this. They are trying to make games expensive again.
In my mind, the bigger and more expensive the dev team, the more likely the business people are to be involved. Those business types really know how to suck fun and fairness out of games in an attempt to turn it into unbridled profits.
Buy a handful of games from small independent studios instead of this if you feel similarly to me.
Inflation adjusted Mario 64 cost in 2022 = $111.91
Inflation adjusted Mario 64 budget in 2022 = ~$2.91mil
Cost of “Elden Ring” on release = $59.99
Estimated dev. budget for Elden Ring = $100mil-200mil
Mario 64 units sold = ~12mil
Elden Ring units sold = ~28mil
These details are provided without comment. You do the math and decide whether the fact that prices haven’t changed since 1996 might be the reason for some of the enshitification we continue to see.
And now for the comment:
Consumers are horrifyingly resistant to price increases for games. It is directly responsible for many of the shitty monetization models we’ve seen. Development budget continue to rise, even on indie games, while consumers pay less and less in “real money value” over time.
It’s completely unsustainable and the very reason the “business types” get involved, forcing unpopular monetization schemes
You realize that costing more does satiate the greed a little bit, right?
Like, yeah, we all know that line-goes-up capitalism isn’t sustainable, but there are still other reasons call of duty has loot boxes and battle passes now.
I never said anything about the quality of the games. I’m speaking specifically to the monetization bullshit.
As I said elsewhere: budget bloat happens in a lot of places. Greedy executive and publishers is one place. Overambitious design goals that get scrapped is another. There’s also bad tools workflows, mismanagement, and any number of other contributing factors.
But even indie devs are getting screwed on pricing and making far less than they deserve to be in many cases.
If people keep buying CoD and Assassins Creed, devs will keep making them. And if they can’t increase retail price to cover the budget they will find other ways to do it.
And yet, these days I am finding better games, made by smaller teams, for lower prices (usually between $30-40) from indie devs. The cost ain’t the reason for enshittification, and paying a higher price will not mean we get better games.
If you like bigger games, and plenty do, them charging a higher price for it up front makes it more likely that they’re made sustainably. If a game costs $100M to make, the difference between breaking even on $70 versus $60 is hundreds of thousands of additional customers.
I simply chose two big, well known, and beloved titles for the sake of expediency.
This problem is not unique to big budget games.
Indie devs are getting screwed too. You saying that you’ve found great games for $30-40 from indie devs isn’t an argument against more sustainable pricing like you think it is.
If the dev budget for the indie game was 5% of the AAA game but the price was 50% then you’ve literally just helped prove my point
The fact is - and I challenge you to prove me wrong here - video games continue to be hands down the best dollar-per-hour investment for entertainment. Even a $60 game that only lasts 20 hrs is still coming in at $3/hr of entertainment, which is very hard to beat. When you look at live service games where people will spend literally thousands of hours after paying anywhere from $60-200 you’re looking at $0.10/hr in some cases.
Now throw in average incomes on the low, medium, and high ends and see if that makes any difference in your criticism of people not wanting to spend so much on a game they might get a hundred or so hours out of.
Hell, throw in the average housing costs and costs of consumables while we’re at it.
Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the capital structure is fair by any means. I understand all the reasons why people - especially right now - are struggling to justify big purchases.
And I will readily agree that inefficient and improper use of resources is one of the contributing factors to ballooning development budgets
That said, video games are - and I challenge you to disprove this - easily one of the best investments for entertainment. Dollars-per-hour of fun on a 20hr, $60 game is $3. For a live service game where people spend hundreds of thousands of hours playing it can get below $0.10 per hour.
EDIT: I also agree that demos need to make a comeback because I’m sick of wasting money. Though people also need to read some reviews before they buy occasionally :/
We’re still talking about ~3 mil to ~150 mil. If the software dev costs for Mario 64 were closer to ~1.5 mil, what does that have to do with the argument being made?
While that may be true, the costs and budgets we’re dealing with today are orders of magnitude higher than they were back then. Physical product manufacturing doesn’t even come close to making up the difference when you factor in digital storefront costs.
They’d ask $1000 for it if they thought people will pay it. No one at Take Two or Rockstar has said this. Most likely is they’ll do that $100 “advance access” thing that a lot of AAA games like to do, where you get the game a few days early. The business hasn’t gotten in the way of the fun or fairness of the campaign mode for Rockstar’s previous efforts, and if it did this time, we’ll certainly hear about it immediately.
This is so strange. Wasn’t it not long ago that studios were crowding into very specific release windows ( usually november iirc ) so they could maximize initial sales? Maybe the digital release era has changed things. I mean, I get it if your game was in the same niche or smth, but “companies might tank” seems a little much.
Either way, if this is true, eoy 2025 is in for a dry spell when it comes to new games.
Edit: Also I find it hilarious how all these “industry analysts” keep popping up suggesting ominous things despite Rockstar not saying a peep about the game besides the trailer. Almost as if they were paid to do it.
Over time they realised that, while holiday windows or whatever have high sales, if there’s a better or more popular game coming out then, yours will just be forgotten.
That said, most “industry specialists” are just glorified influencers, so take it with a grain of salt
They aren’t crowding into those windows because competition helps their sales, it’s because they expect the biggest shopping period of the year will result in more sales than they lose. And there’s a reason only the biggest titles release in these windows.
Capcom made the decision years ago to release in February/March because they know a November window will drown them.
Because it will be full of micro transactions and bullshit content no-one asked for, with anti cheat horseshit that will pretty much be a virus on your computer.
Sad thing is that it’ll still sell millions because most people don’t even know when they are being served shit.
Im completelly opposide. Its maybe only AAA game im intrested in long time.
Mostly because of their track record. I have been playing GTA since the very first top down game and every main game in the series has pushed the games further.
Thinking how big leaps every game has done, i cant wait to see what kind of the beast 6 is going to be.
I just want trains to work in this new game. They never make trains work properly they’re always just indestructible juggernauts and are therefore boring. GTA V had submarines but not drivable trains.
It’s just so meh. Another city, you’re a criminal doing crime. There are just games with much better stories or mechanics at this point. I don’t get the hype around it.
I’m the same but I may just be getting older. Last game I was hyped for was Cyberpunk 2077 coming off of the stellar Witcher 3 and having followed both games I loved, W1 & W2. Sometime before it released, I just dropped all hype for it and haven’t felt the same after. Haven’t even played it yet either.
Today, I let myself be pleasantly surprised by games I never thought I’d like. I really liked Death Stranding and I’m waiting for its sequel but still no hype… I haven’t even seen the trailer yet and I doubt I will… I’ll buy it and go in blindly. Just have a PS for Sony’s once a year AAA and that’s it for AAA gaming. Most other days, its just AA or indie games on PC… which is where I find a lot more flavor. As an example, this month, I’ve played Minami Lane, MudRunner and Art of Rally and starting Tactical Breach Wizards soon.
I’m holding out some hope for GTA VI still. Reason being, while Cyberpunk promised to be super duper everything interconnected magic programming to follow an absolutely awesome but technologically realistic game (Witcher 3), I haven’t seen hype like that for GTA VI. The expectation is to get a well polished freeroam game with lots of fun toys to play around with, a story that’s hopefully long enough to be worth the game’s price, and a new Online mode that gets updates over time. Basically GTA V with a new city and a more polished game overall, but no exponential leaps - despite the fact that the budget is much larger than Cyberpunk.
But I mean MudRunner is also awesome. Couldn’t get into Death Stranding myself, just wasn’t feeling it. Should pick up Art of Rally soon. Tons of great AA and indie games out there if GTA VI flops indeed.
Same here. GTAV, while I liked it, was a minor disappointment for me and I burned out on it. Plus after seeing how GTA Online went and how greedy they got with it, I’m just not interested in Take Two/Rockstar games anymore.
not to mention they decided to block Linux users back in October. I had very little interest in it in the last 6 or 7 years, but I decided when a friend played it I would try to join, just to be met with performance issues and getting kicked offline due to their anticheat. So stupid. It worked for years in Linux, then they just decide to boot it.
I lost what little interest period in anything GTA from that.
Are you seriously questioning whether there is any hype for GTA?
GTAV Online may have hindered Rockstar’s goodwill for fans of the single player mode, but the Online mode rakes in cash.
RDR2 released in 2018 and is widely considered one of the best single player games with one of the best open worlds, strongly signalling to fans that Rockstar hasn’t lost its mojo.
GTA VI is, unquestionably, the most anticipated game of the year. To suggest otherwise is to be insanely disingenuous on your part.
The main writers have since left Rockstar. Dan Houser left in 2020. I feel GTA will lose it’s charm with this next entry, I hope I am wrong, but something just feels off. Either way, won’t be buying it until it’s on a good sale, reviews dependent too.
It’s certainly going to be interesting how this game is received. Rockstar is one of those studios that burns all its goodwill with things like Online, the “Definitive” editions, RDR2 Online closing early, yet despite that it’s the largest studio with one of the largest, most successful franchises.
With the industry being so dire right now, where only huge behemoths like rockstar, or tiny efficient indie studios, can really compete, the outcome of GTA 6 might be quite consequential for the industry.
All they ever did was riff on popular (crime) movies, and they were already scraping the bottom of the bin on that with 5. What popular movies in recent times has 6 even got to be inspired by?
They lost Lazlow… There goes the greatest radio DJ to ever grace the gta airwaves.
When they added purchasable clubs into online and you could get Lazlow to come to your club, I made it my entire goal to make him happy, I spent so much cash keeping him dancing, always made me sad seeing him sitting there alone as the reality of it all hit him.
No, I’m honestly surprised. I’ve barely heard anything about GTA VI. Seriously. I don’t care about it, none of my friends have talked about it despite being the kinda game that they’d be into, and I’ve only seen one or two articles on it.
You sure it’s that highly anticipated? My observation is that people have gotten really sick and tired of AAA games, and this is a shift that’s occurred since RDR2 came out. Very few of the people I know still regularly play AAA games, and those who do almost never buy them on launch. I haven’t seen anywhere near the same amount of hype for GTA VI as I saw for GTA IV or GTA V.
You’re accusing me of being disingenuous? Maybe you’re the one who’s buying into the hype and overestimating public interest. Or perhaps the true answer is somewhere in the middle. Who knows. I was not intentionally downplaying your favorite series though.
just a reminder that you live in a different culture than the average video game player. I haven’t even completed GTA5 and aren’t in the circle of GTA players. Hell, the funnest part for me is driving in a really big circle while listening to music, but as out of touch as I am, I know it’s really REALLY hyped
shrug Idk if it’s really that insane. Tbh I’m not convinced the hype isn’t being manufactured. I have a cousin who’s a pretty bog standard, flavor-of-the-month gamer, and he’s said nothing about GTA VI.
Not saying you’re necessarily wrong, I guess, just that something seems off.
Grand Theft Auto V came out 12 years ago and has been in the top ten best sellers almost every single month since then. It’s not manufactured; you’re just very out of the loop. It’s one of the biggest money makers in all of video games. They spent an estimated $2B on GTA6 and will almost certainly make it back within days, not years.
They’ll make it back in HOURS, especially if it launches on PC same day. I went to the V night launch way back when. There were 500+ people in line at the store I went to. I didn’t sleep for three days after getting it. The hype train is only getting started and will ramp up to supersonic once we get a firm date. I’ll be buying a copy for every platform that I own. It’s going to be sheer fucking pandemonium.
That guy has NO CLUE whatsoever in terms of GTA hype and popularity.
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Judging by all the shark card crap they jammed into the last GTA, I fully expect them to shovel a bunch of crap in to make more money: $70 base games, deluxe editions, DLC, micro transactions, social club integration, required internet connections, all of it.
I miss the old GTAs before they got greedy.
As an optimist, I expect more expansions like Gay Tony and for them to simply make fun of microtransactions on the radio.
Ah, full expansion DLC. That’d be nice.
Also, actual singleplayer content would be sweet.
What’s with half the commenters acting like GTA V isn’t a great game?
Y’all know GTA Online is a different game technically, yeah? The single player of GTA V is still there and even better now that Enhanced is on PC. Rockstar didn’t fuck Up RDR2s single-player Mode so why assume they would on this?
Even GTA Online was fantastic. There’s so much to do and the heists and races were a lot of fun. I think I had more fun playing online than in the single player mode. I definitely put more time into it.
Shark cards never bothered me because I never got one.
Companies need to grow a spine. Good games sell regardless of what’s out. If your confidence in your own game is so low that you’d push it to a slow release date, it’s probably not worth playing anyway.
that’s not true. games can absolutely get fucked by release dates coinciding with big names. and have.
The two Horizon games picked really shitty weeks to release on lol. I think that’s done significant damage to the player base. They’re not groundbreaking games, but still extremely well done (imo)
Ask Titanfall 2 how well launching between Battlefield and CoD went for them
Release dates of big games matter, people only have so much disposable income
I don’t know about that one. Games are expensive these days and if your game releases anywhere near the rumored $100 GTA 6, a LOT of people are going to have to choose one or the other, and it’s very unlikely that in most cases they don’t choose GTA6, literally the most anticipated video game of the last decade. Sure you can always buy the smaller game later, but a huge part of the sales of video games is the opening week, when all the hype around it has had time to come to a head, and you’re influenced by the fact that lots of other people are playing it.
Yeah good games will always sell SOME copies. But if you thinking that a game even releasing in the same month as GTA6 won’t have a permanent impact on that games sales, you’re smoking the reefer.
Maybe they should stop trying to peddle bland-ass live service games that live and die by their players numbers then. A good solo game might take a hit to its initial sales but should recover in the long run.
It won’t though. This feel-good theory that if a game is “good” then it’ll just make the same amount of money it always would have otherwise is not supported by any real world evidence. And even the most hypothetically high quality, ethical, game making company is still a company in the end, and companies need to money to pay living wages and keep people employed making new games. And if the games they are putting out are high quality, they probably have competent leadership. And competent leadership isn’t going to gamble the future of their company and livelihoods of their employees on an unproven feel-good fantasy espoused only by people on Reddit and Lemmy who’ve never run a business before.
If the game is good, doesnt need an active playerbase to survive (ie isn’t entirely based on multiplayer), and the company is already reputable, it has no reasons to not sell decently in the long run. Also if an (already established) company’s future is jeopardized by a single game not doing well, I’m sorry but it’s not well managed. Ask me how I know.
deleted by creator
That’s just not how these things work. Launch windows have a documented history of being uniquely impactful to the long term success of games, movies, even products. It would take some serious evidence to the contrary for you to claim otherwise.
That’s not really here nor there. It also isn’t really true.
I think what you’re saying is true but perhaps you’re both talking about different things. I think you’re speaking about the reality of the situation whereas the comment OP is talking about the risk averse nature of large game studios. I don’t think it’s the same thing.
Also, I think I’m part of a growing minority but if gta 6 reviews are bad I’m not buying it until I hear it’s been fixed. I’ve been burned so many times 😭
I’m buying it regardless of reviews. Which are gonna be amazing anyway but still. I paid full price for Forspoken and actually really enjoyed it. I like the Kojima attitude of (for him it was a bookstore) picking something blindly that calls out to you. It might be amazing, it might be shit, but you learn something from everything you engage with. I just like the surprise of trying something I’ve got a lukewarm interest in and enjoying it a lot. Horizon Lego Adventures and Lost Records Bloom and Rage impressed me recently
Course I play games to play them, not complain about them online all day. And most of the time I enjoy what I find
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence
I know I am buying it once the price goes down considerably. Wasn’t it rumoured to start with 3 digits? I’m a patient gamer.
It’s the exact same thing actually. Their claim was:
But that’s just not true, and game studios of all sizes know that. The risk aversion of these companies exist because of the reality of the situation.
It also has nothing to do with a studios confidence in their game. The quality of a game is light years away from being the sole objective indicator of a games sales. The Outer Wilds is objectively one of the greatest games ever made and has no real peers in what it does. And yet it didn’t make nearly the sales numbers as the latest asset flipped Call of Duty game.
The Outer Wilds was a first game from an indie studio. On this basis alone it was practically guaranteed to not get the success it deserved. And it does deserve a ton of it.
Conversely, call of duty is literally one of the most notorious franchises in the entire industry, and pretty much sells on its name alone.
A good observation. Hence why one of those games can afford to launch during a crowded window despite its lack of quality, and the other, despite their confidence in their work, and the high quality of their work, could not. You’re starting to get it now.
Fair enough - I stand corrected
You cant trust reviews. For example dragon’s dogma 2 which i just picked up is a great game. But some people wouldn’t know it based a lot of criticism and bad reviews it recieved when it launched.
Ehh yeah that’s a whole other can of worms. By “reviews”, for me, I mean a bunch of different sources.
And I do that because you’re correct! Trust in those is low.
So “reviews” maybe isn’t the right word. Just tryna keep the comment simple.
And yet so many of them still suck at launch.
That’s cause the business side keeps pushing for increasingly unrealistic deadlines and will only accept delaying so much before forcing it out.
More like the sphincter of GTA 6 am I right?
I’ll wait until it gets free on Epic and proceed not playing it, since i have better things to do with my life.
I’d pay over $100 for GTA6 personally. And microtransactions aren’t out of the question for me either. I don’t have nearly as much time as money these days. Not that I have a lot of money, but I’ll pay it if it makes the experience better
You have no time, but plenty of money, so you are willing to spend extra money just for the sake of having no time AND no money? Get that corpo dick out of your mouth.
Comments like yours are why the overwhelming majority of video games these days suck.
Yup. “Please bend me over and fuck me for all I’m worth, corpo daddy!” type energy. Some people just can’t get enough of being exploited.
Even if I was a millionaire I wouldn’t want my games to have micro transactions in them. It’s not about the cost, it’s about the fact that as soon as micro transactions are included in the game, the game instantly becomes all about pushing those microtransactions, to the detriment of the gameplay.
Also you are mad if you prepare to pay $100 for GTA VI especially because we all know that it’ll be discounted at some point.
controversial take, but I hope they do delay it. Better a good game late than a bad game early. As big as this release is, it HAS to be good.
Yeah, the Witcher 3 release should have taught the game publishers this. CDPR delayed the launch by several months because the game wasn’t ready to ship yet. And the game was phenomenal, and received rave reviews pretty much across the board. Gamers were disappointed about the launch, but basically went “this game will be worth the wait.”
…and they followed it with Cyberpunk 2077’s disastrous launch but ultimate success. So I wouldn’t hold CDPR as a high standard.
I’d argue that is just another example of why delaying games isn’t a bad thing. 2077 clearly wasn’t ready at launch, and would have benefitted from a delayed launch.
I feel like that one was also due to awful development practices, they had the whole scrapping the entire first 2 years of work thing due to a control freak lead dev who was ultimately releaved of his position (though not until after release iirc)
I wouldn’t call it a success yet. I just started playing it for the first time yesterday and I have already fallen through the floor twice and the camera was broken causing seizure inducing visuals in one of the cutscenes.
It’s right there in the link. It sold more than Witcher 3, even though it did the wrong thing by releasing early and buggy.
Funny how CDPR themselves then had a major fuck up with Cyberpunk
You realize that rockstar basically invented this strategy right? Almost every release since vice city or San Andreas has been delayed by 6 months to a year to be the best game possible.
I just assumed game companies had been doing that since the 1800’s.
Sure you can argue standard practice has been and should be to deliver a finished game first and foremost. But in the context of modern gaming and setting release dates, Rockstar has historically been unafraid to change a release date to make a better game. But yes before the internet and the ability to patch a game it was standard to make sure your game didn’t suck before letting it loose.
And my comment was more to point out that using CDPR as a shining beacon of consistently solid game releases is laughable, especially when comparing them to Rockstar.
While at one point GTA was my favorite series and I was absolutely hyped for GTA V, I’m not for this one. I kind of feel like I’m getting a little old for GTA.
Maybe I’ll change my mind after it releases and there’s a good chance I’ll play it anyway, but right now… meh.
Take your console exclusive bullshit and shove it up your ass. I’ll play it when it’s on PC. And only on PC.
That’s going to be a long wait my friend.
deleted by creator
It’s been the same for… ~25 years, since at least GTA3.
You can still play them on both console and PC and not only PC.
A perennial favorite
I’d rather wait than buy a console for a single game that will barely hit 720p/30.
I think they mean it will never be PC only, so it’d be an infinite wait. Or maybe some future release version will be console only.
Also, “720p/30” lol
This will probably be the last time it ever happens. They’re trying to get people to double dip, and plenty will, but the console install base isn’t what it was when GTA V came out at the end of a generation. Plus we all know full well that the PC version will happen, whereas in yesteryear, we weren’t sure.
I had a look to check the figures.
From the PlayStation perspective February 2025 estimates put the PS5 at 74.9m, while January 2013 estimates put the PS3 at 77m.
However Xbox is really letting their numbers lag with 28.3m Series consoles sold by September 2024 vs 77.2m 360 consoles by April 2013.
If we were just talking PlayStation I would say 97% is near enough to make no difference but if we compare both platforms together its only 67% and that is enough to influence strategy. A console only release in 2025 is unlikely to eclipse GTA5’s position as “fastest-selling entertainment product in history”.
But also don’t forget that the amount of gamers is larger today than in 2013. Gaming is much more mainstream, and so even 97% of the install base is still disappointing considering steam grew by, what, 3x or something in terms of average monthly users?
Another source I found is that the amount of total gamers grew by roughly 50% from 2013 to 2025. But yeah, I just did a quick skin numbers are not precise
But still, 97% is disappointing considering the general demographic was supposed to grow. And then, in reality, it’s just 67% too
Yeah that’s a good point.
If gaming grew and the total userbase is the same now, then it’s smaller by percentage.
That must been that PC is just exploding in popularity over the time period in question.
A game like GTA is likely to drive console sales, but not enough to make up that deficit.
I just don’t have the patience to wait even more. I have a PS5, so why wouldn’t I play it on release??
Because I don’t want to play full price for a 1080p upscaled experience at 30fps. If it’s a good experience then it will be worth the wait and that much better when it runs smoother, looks better, and loads faster. Plus it will have most of the bugs worked by then.
Why would you want to pay $70 for a pay to win game at all?
Or $100 ,as some people are predicting
There’s a single player game people are pretty jazzed about, too.
Huh? For £70 I’m getting -
But you’ve decided to latch onto one aspect of the previous game (the Online mode) to try to be as contrarian as possible?
I sure as heck will pay £70 for the above. And so will many millions of others. Sorry if that does a poo on your hate-train.
Well, to be fair, you don’t know you’re getting it for that. As far as I’ve seen, they haven’t announced the release price yet. And a lot of studios are hoping that Rockstar will take the fall for being the first $100 game so publishers can start charging used console prices for AAA games from then on.
Either way though, I won’t be paying anything for it.
You hope you’ll get those things. It’s Rockstar though so who really knows. I mean we do know we’re going to get a single player that’s been confirmed by Rockstar but everything else is just a guess. The map leak people seem to suggest that the map will include NASA and Disneyland which will be cool I guess, but we don’t know that that’s just a prediction and I don’t quite understand how they can predict that.
I just don’t trust Rockstar not to screw it up with GTA online 2, now with more irritating flying bikes
I don’t see any horse balls physics in your list.
Utterly unplayable.
Based on what? You don’t actually know until it gets released. Sure, past history and reputation are certainly things to factor in, but we’ve seen plenty of major gaming companies shit the bed, despite their reputations.
Wait until it launches and the reviews come in.
I’m responding to a comment assuming it’ll be nothing but a “pay to win” game, despite any real evidence of that - I’m pointing out the expectations of GTA VI.
This sub is like Reddit on steroids. Just a bunch of contrarian kids trying to start arguments on the internet. Bizarre.
Dude thats crazy. I havent paod full price for a game in years, have a little patience and you can get a bunch more games for that much.
Isthereanydeal.com
Games are always on sale.
Good for you! For GTA VI, I definitely wanna play it as quickly as possible and £70 is a pretty reasonable price for that.
Why the rush?
I’m with you on not paying full price in general, but they answered your main question before and you didnt acknowledge it.
Because of backlogs and eventual price drops /sales
Because I don’t want console level performance when I play it for the first time
K
K. You do that.
I’ll go a step further and say only when it’s been vetted and discounted on PC.
They want $100 for this. They are trying to make games expensive again.
In my mind, the bigger and more expensive the dev team, the more likely the business people are to be involved. Those business types really know how to suck fun and fairness out of games in an attempt to turn it into unbridled profits.
Buy a handful of games from small independent studios instead of this if you feel similarly to me.
Was the $100 price ever confirmed? I thought it was just rumored?
Are you asking me if I can predict the future?
Well since you’re posting “they want $100 for this” so matter-of-factly, you seem to believe that you can predict the future, Andy.
The only thing Rockstar has ever officially released about the game is the teaser trailer. Everything else is pure speculation and rumormilling.
Gaming industry pundits are gooning so hard for the prospect of $100.00 standard games they keep parroting this out hoping it will become true
Fun facts incoming!
Cost of “Mario 64” on release = $59.99
Development budget for Mario 64 = ~$1.56mil
Inflation adjusted Mario 64 cost in 2022 = $111.91
Inflation adjusted Mario 64 budget in 2022 = ~$2.91mil
Cost of “Elden Ring” on release = $59.99
Estimated dev. budget for Elden Ring = $100mil-200mil
Mario 64 units sold = ~12mil
Elden Ring units sold = ~28mil
These details are provided without comment. You do the math and decide whether the fact that prices haven’t changed since 1996 might be the reason for some of the enshitification we continue to see.
And now for the comment:
Consumers are horrifyingly resistant to price increases for games. It is directly responsible for many of the shitty monetization models we’ve seen. Development budget continue to rise, even on indie games, while consumers pay less and less in “real money value” over time.
It’s completely unsustainable and the very reason the “business types” get involved, forcing unpopular monetization schemes
meh, I don’t think that the reason AAA games are bad is because they cost less. I think it’s just greed and rushing the developers.
You realize that costing more does satiate the greed a little bit, right?
Like, yeah, we all know that line-goes-up capitalism isn’t sustainable, but there are still other reasons call of duty has loot boxes and battle passes now.
I never said anything about the quality of the games. I’m speaking specifically to the monetization bullshit.
As I said elsewhere: budget bloat happens in a lot of places. Greedy executive and publishers is one place. Overambitious design goals that get scrapped is another. There’s also bad tools workflows, mismanagement, and any number of other contributing factors.
But even indie devs are getting screwed on pricing and making far less than they deserve to be in many cases.
If people keep buying CoD and Assassins Creed, devs will keep making them. And if they can’t increase retail price to cover the budget they will find other ways to do it.
oh, in that case yeah that’s fair, I agree
And yet, these days I am finding better games, made by smaller teams, for lower prices (usually between $30-40) from indie devs. The cost ain’t the reason for enshittification, and paying a higher price will not mean we get better games.
If you like bigger games, and plenty do, them charging a higher price for it up front makes it more likely that they’re made sustainably. If a game costs $100M to make, the difference between breaking even on $70 versus $60 is hundreds of thousands of additional customers.
I simply chose two big, well known, and beloved titles for the sake of expediency.
This problem is not unique to big budget games.
Indie devs are getting screwed too. You saying that you’ve found great games for $30-40 from indie devs isn’t an argument against more sustainable pricing like you think it is.
If the dev budget for the indie game was 5% of the AAA game but the price was 50% then you’ve literally just helped prove my point
The fact is - and I challenge you to prove me wrong here - video games continue to be hands down the best dollar-per-hour investment for entertainment. Even a $60 game that only lasts 20 hrs is still coming in at $3/hr of entertainment, which is very hard to beat. When you look at live service games where people will spend literally thousands of hours after paying anywhere from $60-200 you’re looking at $0.10/hr in some cases.
This is where it’s at now, ‘smaller’ teams that actually care about the thing they’re making.
We don’t need games made by teams of 19,000 people like AC:Shadows, it’s bloat. Skyrim was made with a team of less than 300.
Now throw in average incomes on the low, medium, and high ends and see if that makes any difference in your criticism of people not wanting to spend so much on a game they might get a hundred or so hours out of.
Hell, throw in the average housing costs and costs of consumables while we’re at it.
Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the capital structure is fair by any means. I understand all the reasons why people - especially right now - are struggling to justify big purchases.
And I will readily agree that inefficient and improper use of resources is one of the contributing factors to ballooning development budgets
That said, video games are - and I challenge you to disprove this - easily one of the best investments for entertainment. Dollars-per-hour of fun on a 20hr, $60 game is $3. For a live service game where people spend hundreds of thousands of hours playing it can get below $0.10 per hour.
EDIT: I also agree that demos need to make a comeback because I’m sick of wasting money. Though people also need to read some reviews before they buy occasionally :/
You’re very conveniently and likely deliberately leaving out that more than 1/2 the cost for Mario 64 was manufacturing the cartridge…
We’re still talking about ~3 mil to ~150 mil. If the software dev costs for Mario 64 were closer to ~1.5 mil, what does that have to do with the argument being made?
I almost replied from my inbox; glad someone said it before I even got to it haha
Cartridge manufacturing and distribution was hella expensive back then and that took a big bite on any sales.
Digital storefronts do take as well their lion share though, but that’s on sales.
While that may be true, the costs and budgets we’re dealing with today are orders of magnitude higher than they were back then. Physical product manufacturing doesn’t even come close to making up the difference when you factor in digital storefront costs.
They’d ask $1000 for it if they thought people will pay it. No one at Take Two or Rockstar has said this. Most likely is they’ll do that $100 “advance access” thing that a lot of AAA games like to do, where you get the game a few days early. The business hasn’t gotten in the way of the fun or fairness of the campaign mode for Rockstar’s previous efforts, and if it did this time, we’ll certainly hear about it immediately.
$100 seems like a stretch to me as they have been giving the last game away for free several times on Epic. But who knows with the console crowd…
I still haven’t played GTA5. Does it hold up (single-player) all those years later?
gameplay-wise, yeah absolutely. writing-wise, pretty alright, some hits and some misses. kinda like south park.
I remember liking GTA4 but getting burned out on its archaic in my view mission design.
This is so strange. Wasn’t it not long ago that studios were crowding into very specific release windows ( usually november iirc ) so they could maximize initial sales? Maybe the digital release era has changed things. I mean, I get it if your game was in the same niche or smth, but “companies might tank” seems a little much.
Either way, if this is true, eoy 2025 is in for a dry spell when it comes to new games.
Edit: Also I find it hilarious how all these “industry analysts” keep popping up suggesting ominous things despite Rockstar not saying a peep about the game besides the trailer. Almost as if they were paid to do it.
Sure is a great way to stir the pot, that’s for sure. This article raised my eyebrow so much I just had to share it.
Over time they realised that, while holiday windows or whatever have high sales, if there’s a better or more popular game coming out then, yours will just be forgotten.
That said, most “industry specialists” are just glorified influencers, so take it with a grain of salt
They aren’t crowding into those windows because competition helps their sales, it’s because they expect the biggest shopping period of the year will result in more sales than they lose. And there’s a reason only the biggest titles release in these windows.
Capcom made the decision years ago to release in February/March because they know a November window will drown them.
I don’t know why but I couldn’t give two shits about GTA6, maybe I’m just burned out on AAA games
Because it will be full of micro transactions and bullshit content no-one asked for, with anti cheat horseshit that will pretty much be a virus on your computer.
Sad thing is that it’ll still sell millions because most people don’t even know when they are being served shit.
No doubt it’ll also have Denuvo, just to make the game run even worse too.
Im completelly opposide. Its maybe only AAA game im intrested in long time.
Mostly because of their track record. I have been playing GTA since the very first top down game and every main game in the series has pushed the games further.
Thinking how big leaps every game has done, i cant wait to see what kind of the beast 6 is going to be.
I just want trains to work in this new game. They never make trains work properly they’re always just indestructible juggernauts and are therefore boring. GTA V had submarines but not drivable trains.
It’s just so meh. Another city, you’re a criminal doing crime. There are just games with much better stories or mechanics at this point. I don’t get the hype around it.
I’m the same but I may just be getting older. Last game I was hyped for was Cyberpunk 2077 coming off of the stellar Witcher 3 and having followed both games I loved, W1 & W2. Sometime before it released, I just dropped all hype for it and haven’t felt the same after. Haven’t even played it yet either.
Today, I let myself be pleasantly surprised by games I never thought I’d like. I really liked Death Stranding and I’m waiting for its sequel but still no hype… I haven’t even seen the trailer yet and I doubt I will… I’ll buy it and go in blindly. Just have a PS for Sony’s once a year AAA and that’s it for AAA gaming. Most other days, its just AA or indie games on PC… which is where I find a lot more flavor. As an example, this month, I’ve played Minami Lane, MudRunner and Art of Rally and starting Tactical Breach Wizards soon.
I’m holding out some hope for GTA VI still. Reason being, while Cyberpunk promised to be super duper everything interconnected magic programming to follow an absolutely awesome but technologically realistic game (Witcher 3), I haven’t seen hype like that for GTA VI. The expectation is to get a well polished freeroam game with lots of fun toys to play around with, a story that’s hopefully long enough to be worth the game’s price, and a new Online mode that gets updates over time. Basically GTA V with a new city and a more polished game overall, but no exponential leaps - despite the fact that the budget is much larger than Cyberpunk.
But I mean MudRunner is also awesome. Couldn’t get into Death Stranding myself, just wasn’t feeling it. Should pick up Art of Rally soon. Tons of great AA and indie games out there if GTA VI flops indeed.
I know I am.
Wait, do people still get excited for GTA? I thought GTA V online killed a lot of goodwill for the series.
It did. I’ve been a GTA player since the first one kn PS1.
I’ve bought every GTA game.
I have zero interest in GTA6.
Same here. GTAV, while I liked it, was a minor disappointment for me and I burned out on it. Plus after seeing how GTA Online went and how greedy they got with it, I’m just not interested in Take Two/Rockstar games anymore.
not to mention they decided to block Linux users back in October. I had very little interest in it in the last 6 or 7 years, but I decided when a friend played it I would try to join, just to be met with performance issues and getting kicked offline due to their anticheat. So stupid. It worked for years in Linux, then they just decide to boot it.
I lost what little interest period in anything GTA from that.
yeah not really interested to buy it outside of a sale when its obvious they will go overdrive on online revenue in 6
Are you seriously questioning whether there is any hype for GTA?
GTAV Online may have hindered Rockstar’s goodwill for fans of the single player mode, but the Online mode rakes in cash.
RDR2 released in 2018 and is widely considered one of the best single player games with one of the best open worlds, strongly signalling to fans that Rockstar hasn’t lost its mojo.
GTA VI is, unquestionably, the most anticipated game of the year. To suggest otherwise is to be insanely disingenuous on your part.
The main writers have since left Rockstar. Dan Houser left in 2020. I feel GTA will lose it’s charm with this next entry, I hope I am wrong, but something just feels off. Either way, won’t be buying it until it’s on a good sale, reviews dependent too.
It’s certainly going to be interesting how this game is received. Rockstar is one of those studios that burns all its goodwill with things like Online, the “Definitive” editions, RDR2 Online closing early, yet despite that it’s the largest studio with one of the largest, most successful franchises.
With the industry being so dire right now, where only huge behemoths like rockstar, or tiny efficient indie studios, can really compete, the outcome of GTA 6 might be quite consequential for the industry.
All they ever did was riff on popular (crime) movies, and they were already scraping the bottom of the bin on that with 5. What popular movies in recent times has 6 even got to be inspired by?
Really only Once Upon a Time in Hollywood comes to mind, but it’s not Scarface level popular.
They lost Lazlow… There goes the greatest radio DJ to ever grace the gta airwaves.
When they added purchasable clubs into online and you could get Lazlow to come to your club, I made it my entire goal to make him happy, I spent so much cash keeping him dancing, always made me sad seeing him sitting there alone as the reality of it all hit him.
No, I’m honestly surprised. I’ve barely heard anything about GTA VI. Seriously. I don’t care about it, none of my friends have talked about it despite being the kinda game that they’d be into, and I’ve only seen one or two articles on it.
You sure it’s that highly anticipated? My observation is that people have gotten really sick and tired of AAA games, and this is a shift that’s occurred since RDR2 came out. Very few of the people I know still regularly play AAA games, and those who do almost never buy them on launch. I haven’t seen anywhere near the same amount of hype for GTA VI as I saw for GTA IV or GTA V.
You’re accusing me of being disingenuous? Maybe you’re the one who’s buying into the hype and overestimating public interest. Or perhaps the true answer is somewhere in the middle. Who knows. I was not intentionally downplaying your favorite series though.
just a reminder that you live in a different culture than the average video game player. I haven’t even completed GTA5 and aren’t in the circle of GTA players. Hell, the funnest part for me is driving in a really big circle while listening to music, but as out of touch as I am, I know it’s really REALLY hyped
The article you’re commenting on is literally about the game’s unsustainable hype and its impact on the industry.
It won Most Anticipated at TGA.
This is far from my favourite series, just enjoy shining a light on insane takes on Lemmy!
shrug Idk if it’s really that insane. Tbh I’m not convinced the hype isn’t being manufactured. I have a cousin who’s a pretty bog standard, flavor-of-the-month gamer, and he’s said nothing about GTA VI.
Not saying you’re necessarily wrong, I guess, just that something seems off.
Grand Theft Auto V came out 12 years ago and has been in the top ten best sellers almost every single month since then. It’s not manufactured; you’re just very out of the loop. It’s one of the biggest money makers in all of video games. They spent an estimated $2B on GTA6 and will almost certainly make it back within days, not years.
They’ll make it back in HOURS, especially if it launches on PC same day. I went to the V night launch way back when. There were 500+ people in line at the store I went to. I didn’t sleep for three days after getting it. The hype train is only getting started and will ramp up to supersonic once we get a firm date. I’ll be buying a copy for every platform that I own. It’s going to be sheer fucking pandemonium.
That guy has NO CLUE whatsoever in terms of GTA hype and popularity.