GTA 6 publisher says pricing should be based on the game's playtime

There’s not long to go until the latest Grand Theft Auto arrives. Well, we hope.

Said to be one of the biggest video games ever to be released, GTA VI is particularly anticipated with it being a long ten years since Five came out.

And now the game's publisher is saying pricing should be based on the playtime.

There’s really not a lot known about the latest from Rockstar Games, except for a lot of discussion in a price hike from £60 to £70.

Yet, CEO of Take-Two Interactive (the publisher behind the GTA series), Strauss Zelnick has a more unique perspective on how video games in general should be valued.

He reckons games should be priced at their ‘per-hour value’, essentially meaning that the longer a game is, the more money it is worth.

This could arguably be a solver to those quicker games being cheaper than mega open-world RPGs.

Rockstar Games

The Gamer reports Zelnick said: “In terms of pricing for any entertainment property, basically, the algorithm is the value of the expected entertainment usage, which is to say that the per-hour value times the number of expected hours plus the terminal value that’s perceived by the customer in ownership if the title is actually owned, not, say, rented or subscribed to.

“And you’ll see that that bears out in every kind of entertainment vehicle. By that standard, our frontline prices are still very, very low because we offer many hours of engagement.”

The GTA series is of course known for having major open-world ad extensive game play, so by this thinking, would be worth more money than a shorter game.

Rockstar Games

While all this is going on, it’s not totally clear just how much GTA VI is actually going to cost, just that there’s been a trend of $70 releases in the states.

Rockstar recently announced that a trailer will finally be dropping early next month – just in time for the Christmas hype.

But there’s still time to go potentially, as rumours suggest GTA VI will be released either early 2024 or early 2025 – let’s just hope for that closer time.

While there isn’t much know about the latest game in this coveted, top-selling video game series, we know it’ll take much the same form as the other recent GTAs.

There’s been ‘leaks’ though, suggesting we’ll be returning to Vice City and that we could have a first female protagonist, named Lucia.

Ah, let us play already!

Topics: Gaming, GTA, Money

Jess Battison

Jess is an Entertainment Journalist with a love of all things pop culture. Her main interests include keeping up with the Twitter girlies, waiting for a new series of The Traitors and losing her voice at a Beyoncé concert. She graduated with a first in Journalism from City, University of London in 2021 and has previously worked at MyLondon.

@jessbattison_