Rockstar said GTA 6 costs $79.99 across PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S, confirming a $10 jump from the standard $70 we’ve seen this generation. The Ultimate Edition, meanwhile, is $20 more, priced $99.99.
GTA 6 physical copies do not include a disc, Rockstar has confirmed. They’re just a code in a box
I remember when the entire concept of digital downloads was sold to us as a way to make games cheaper, and the sacrifices we make on physical media, boxes, manuals, pack ins, etc, would ensure those cheaper games still saw devs making more money than they ever would with a physical copy.
I called bullshit on it from the start. I said from the start that their profit margins are gonna be significantly higher, and they have no reason to lower prices becuase gamers are already trained to pay 50 dollars. and I was scoffed and guffawed at, and called a blind fool and a luddite and everything else.
and now we have digital download games that cost 80-100 dollars.
GTA5 made a billion dollars in 3 days.
I fully expect idiotic fucking gamers to make GTA6 earn a billion dollars in half a day, and thus rewarding this shit so spectacularly that every game that follows will also be 80-100 dollars.
And those same gamers will cry… oh lord will they cry, about the incredulity, willfully oblivious to the fact that its their very fault that it happened.
If game prices had adjusted for inflation, we’d be paying 250-300 for one now.
That doesn’t mean it isn’t just greed especially in this case (from what I heard some pretty basic features like car customization are locked behind the “ultimate edition”), but in general it’s more of a miracle (and result of the massive market growth combined with no unit cost) that game prices have ignored inflation for this long.
Always gotta be someone to white knight.
Won’t someone think of the poor companies, they are making record profits…but we should be paying more because they’re not making enough record profits! because we should be paying more due to inflashun! arent they so kind to only charge us 80-100 dollars!
Reading comprehension, how does it work?
I literally said that in this case it’s almost certainly just because they know they can get away with it and make more money
Give him some slack, double negatives can be challenging for some people.
A fool and his money are quick to part ways.
… I’m still adhering to ‘Remember: No Preorders’, from fucking 15 years ago now.
Everybody else just opts in to get financially hosed down and flatlined like random innocent Russian civillians in an airport.
$100 if you want:
The entire map / all interactive world locations.
The entire story.
Ability to customize vehicles.
All of the game’s vehicles.
All of personal cosmetic customization options, such as clothes, tattoos, makeup, etc.
All of the weapon customization options.
So really, the actual game is $100 dollars, that does not include Online, but there’s a slimmed down poor person edition available for $80 bucks.
GTA Online 2 or w/e looks like its gonna be a monthly subscription to even access it.
Oh also there are no physical editions.
None.
All digital, the ‘physical’ is just a code in a box.
Now, the actual ‘extra’ content in the Ultimate Edition is an 80s/Vice City/Miami Vice cosmetic pack.
But the reality is that the broke ass bitch version is a stripped down version of the actual game, which is the Ultimate Edition.
This is exactly the case. The made the $80 version the budget edition. One where you get an incomplete package for not paying the $100 that the game actually costs.
All that and I will bet you anything that they will have in-game purchases. Some kind of currency that you can purchase with real money that you can use in the game to buy extra shit.
Well if they keep going with the GTA5/RDR2 framework, it would be Shark Cards/Gold, and a two tier in game currency system.
Give them real money, you get in game currency 1 or 2, some in game items cost currency 1, some cost ingame currency 2.
They set the ‘exchange rates’, as well as prices of special items, and they set the increment amounts you can buy ingame crncy 1 and 2 for, such that for ingame purchase combos they know are likely, well you have to spend a little bit more real world money and have some leftover ingame currency.
They basically wrote the book on using psychologically manipulative dark patterns in system structuring and UI design for this sort of stuff.
GTA Online is a ludicrous money printer in the way Steam is a money printer for Valve.
… But with Steam you’re getting, you know, new games. With Rockstar, you’re getting bling and overpowered vehicles snd weapons to troll people with.
Now… I don’t think they’d extend the ingame currency to be something you could purchase for single player GTA6. That seems like it just be waay too much, even for them, it would make single player into as much of a pay 2 win joke as GTA5 Online is.
But I guess its not impossible?
Fuck! I wanted to buy second hand so Rockshit doesn’t get my money. You can’t just fire like 35 developers a year before the big release. What a fucking evil shit company. But yes, I still want to play because I’m a bad person.
You don’t have to be a bad person.
… you can wait untill it comes to PC, we’ll get it cracked eventually, at least single player.
Those old GTA 6 alpha leaks are still out there.
I actually had a copy at one point… I’m sure someone still does, and I’m sure examining it can be useful.
But uh yeah, fire a whole bunch of devs right before release?
That’s AAA industry standard, been that way for like 15 years now, they basically all do that.
It’s even worse than them just firing them. They fired them for being union members and trying to organize a larger Union in their workforce. This was union busting. And they did it by claiming these people leaked confidential information. Which is blacklisting.
Fuck that company.
GTA Online 2 or w/e looks like its gonna be a monthly subscription to even access it.
Source?
GTA 6 is a ‘singleplayer experience,’ GTA Online may be sold separately
Rockstar Games and Sony seem to confirm GTA 6 will be a singleplayer game, possibly indicating that the next version of GTA Online could be standalone.
… (bunch of examples of Rockstar repeatedly describing GTA 6 as ‘a single player experience’ consistently across all of its marketing material, everywhere) …
This gave Rockstar lots of flexibility in how gamers interact with the game itself–which has splintered into two very distinct offerings–and many analysts believed and took for granted that Rockstar would simply ship GTA Online as a free component within GTA 6’s base game.
If I had to guess, I would say that Rockstar is currently preparing to essentially translate the existing version of GTA Online, which takes place in Los Santos, to the other side of the country in Vice City’s crime-ridden streets.
It’s possible we could see the current iteration of GTA Online go into retirement as Rockstar moves into the next version, however, all of this takes time and a lot of manpower and money, so it’s possible that the new version of GTA Online simply isn’t ready yet.
GTA+ would probably be involved in this process in some way, potentially offering access to GTA Online by default while also adding in extras and bonuses like vehicles and weapons.
So yeah my guess would be that they do a two pronged approach of either:
You buy GTA Online 2 as a standalone game
or
You have a GTA + monthly subscription, which gives you both access to GTA Online 2, and also basically a ‘battlepass’ or w/e, monthly perks.
But with the latter, stop the subscription? Well there goes your GTA Online 2 access.
You can do both too, of course.
They already figured out that you could split RDR2 and GTA5 into ‘singleplayer + multiplayer’ and ‘just multiplayer’.
Why not just also have ‘just single player’?
Are you aware that there’s a subscription available for GTA Online 1 right now, by the same name, and it isn’t required for access? There’s no reason to believe they’re going to lock access behind a subscription; it’s become very unpopular, as they find they make more money without that barrier.
If game > 30$ Game not worth the money and you shouldn’t buy it
That is the rule. I am not making exeptions and especialy not for AAA studio… I may be willing to go up to 40$ for a small indie team thats clearly steugleing and i rly love there vision, but thats as high as i would go.
Gonna have to disagree there! I’ve played many games that are worth more than $30 to me, and hell some of them were less than $30!
Money doesnt mean the same thing to everyone. 70$ isnt as much to you, but thats 13h worth of wage for me
For the record, I didn’t say it isn’t much to me.
Is that actually your wage in the US that’s awful.
Its not us
Would be illegal in the USA. Unless they are giving an after tax value, I suppose, don’t feel like doing that math.
No physical, no purchase. Period.
I’ll put that in the patient game pile. I’ll buy it in 5 years when it goes to 56% off or more.
I don’t understand why console players are so obsessed with physical copies. I play on PC and the last game with a disc I bought was 16 years ago, it was Civilization 5. After multiple moves I lost the disc and had to buy it again on steam.
So the downsides are that you are wasting plastic and can lose the disc. Can anyone explain the upsides?
Used game market.
And PC games are easily accessible. Digital downloads for consoles only last as long as their specific storefront.
Yeah, I got a wii U game fairly recently and panicked when I fired it up because it wanted to access the internet to look for updates. Luckily you could just skip past that and still play, but it made me wonder about the newer games that are just download codes and how they will be handled. Though I already have a good guess.
It’s annoying enough that they didn’t patch either the systems or games to not bother trying connecting to servers that no longer exist. Though now I’m wondering if anyone cooked up some home brew servers they can redirect DNS to that at least say “connection accepted, nothing new here, grey out the options that depend on this being real” if not attempt to support actual features.
I’m primarily a PC gamer and lack of physical copies is probably one of my top three drawbacks of it. It’s slightly different in PC though, because at least we have GOG as a non DRM option.
Not interested, will be fun to check out some live streams very briefly while I continue spending most of my time building stuff with AI though.
Stop building stuff with ai
I tried, it didn’t make me any money. Pay me $50,000 a year, that’s all I’m asking for, and I’ll stop right now. I’ll even tell other people to stop too.
Sounds like a skill issue, maybe you should try McDonald’s
deleted by creator
I’m already sick of this of this games shit
Hahaha
I get it, but…it’s gonna be a banger. Rockstar may be a terrible place to work, but they make good games. GTAV and RDR2 are among my favorite game experiences.
I just wish it were releasing for PC at the same time.
Oh that was NEVER going to happen. They found out with GTA V and RDR2 that they can triple dip on sales at full price by staggering releases and upgrades. Rockstar will never release everything at the same time again.
They found out with GTA V and RDR2…
Not to be pedantic, but Rockstar have always staggered their PC ports all the way back to GTA III. Their strategy is literally 25+ years old at this point and I don’t see it changing.
Never say never. The console landscape has changed dramatically since both of those games came out. PC took a lot of market share, and the console install base at the time of GTA V’s release was way higher than it is now.
Never say never.
Rockstar only loses money by releasing both at the same time. PC-only gamers will wait to get it on PC, but the gamers that also have consoles and don’t want to wait will buy it on console, and then buy it again on PC when that releases in roughly a year (just like GTA V and RDR2). It was never launching on PC at the same time as consoles, the chances of that were 0% after Rockstar saw the multiple millions of dollars in extra sales they got thanks to those staggered releases.
The chances get significantly higher when the console player base is smaller and trending down. Investors want to see the biggest entertainment launch in history every time, which is doable when you’re reaching a larger addressable market. The other headwind they’re facing right now is that people on the fence for a PS5 are maybe less inclined to buy one just for GTA now that it’s gotten significant price hikes. Someone impatient who may have been willing to double dip is probably less so.
GTA6 is still going to do gangbusters with exactly this strategy, but the market is changing, and it could affect how things play out in the future.
never… they will never…
used to make good games…
now they make stores and money pits with graphics and mechanics slapped on top.
stop defending these companies who have already proven to not give two fucks about you and want to extort more and more from you.
grow a pair of balls FFS… actually stand up for what’s right and stop caving to your simple mind of, oh but it’s kinda fun
This has some serious “GAMERS RISE UP!!!” energy. It’s a video game, and people on Lemmy need to calm the hell down. Buying games was never about “actually standing up for what’s right”. Get off the high horse.
used to make good games… now they make stores and money pits with graphics and mechanics slapped on top.
Their last game was Red Dead Redemption 2 and it was critically acclaimed and loved. I don’t personally care about GTA 6 but I can see why people would be excited for their next game.
used to make good games…
The last two new games they made were, if I am correct, GTAV and RDR2. The two games I mentioned as having loved. What “used to”?
stop defending these companies who have already proven to not give two fucks about you
Where was I defending anyone? I said I expect the game will be good because the last two they made I loved.
and want to extort more and more from you.
They haven’t gotten a dime from me for anything except game releases, so if you’re trying to complain about GTA Online or Red Dead Online…that ain’t me. As far as I’m concerned, they made products I liked that I paid for. And my guess is the next one will also be something I like.
grow a pair of balls FFS… actually stand up for what’s right
I don’t think falling in line and following your feelings on this topic would be me growing a pair of balls…
and stop caving to your simple mind of, oh but it’s kinda fun
RDR2 was art. That game made me cry. It told a beautiful, tragic story any told it incredibly well. “It’s kinda fun” is hilariously reductive.
But even if it were only kinda fun, it’s a video game. That’s the whole point, right? It’s supposed to be entertaining. It being a piece of art is just the cherry on top.
I didn’t care for RDR2. Too much interactive movie. The endgame was fun but even then there’s goddamn cut scenes for basically every major side quest as well. The main story was so fucking tedious, as there were sections where you had legitimately 50% cut scenes. So that means when you want to pick it up for an hour, you spend 15 minutes doing inventory management shit, 20 minutes of cut scenes, and 20 minutes of actual gameplay. If felt almost impossible to play if you didn’t have 3+ hour chunks to dedicate to it.
I’m sorry, but I’ll die on this mountain - game stories are just never very good. They feel special because you’re a participant, but they’d be be c tier made for TV movies without that context. Tons of games used to tell stories within the gameplay just fine. I think resorting to lengthy cut scenes to move the narrative is honestly just lazy.
Kojima games are famously cutscene heavy. They may not be for everyone, but lazy is the last word I’d use to describe anything about them. I think it’s perfectly fine for a story to lean on its medium or outside context to feel special, interactive movies included.
In fact, I’ll even say it’s perfectly fine for a game’s presentation to force tons of people out of its audience in general, whether that’s via extreme difficulty, reliance on senses not everyone has, not being pausable, or not being enjoyable in anything less than 3 hour chunks.
I can’t fault you for your opinion. I loved the game, but it definitely isn’t for everyone and I know plenty of people who share your view. And I understand the complaint! It just doesn’t bother me the same way it does you. To each their own, you know?
It’s like this every time a new GTA comes out.
OK, seriously now: Why bother saying you’re going to “release a physical version” that’s nothing more than a code inside an empty plastic box? I really don’t get it.
That’s way, the people with slow Internet will have a nice box to look at while their download fail.
Now that’s a reasonable response lol
Some stores have said that they won’t sell the physical copy of GTA 6, due to it being just a code.
There are some rumors going around that a physical disc copy of the game comes out in December, so I guess it’s better than nothing, but still sucks.
Same question:
Why are funko pops?
Same answer.
Some people like to still have the box for collection purposes. Personally, I agree. I think the only physical option at this point should be something like a collectible steelbook if all they’re going to have is a redemption code.
Yeah, Steelbooks and the like make sense, but wanting to buy a piece of plastic that’s just a waste of space… It’s the worse of physical and the digital format, the worse of both worlds.
(The anti Hannah Montana!)
But does it run on Hannah Montana Linux?
i like starfields steelbook. the code is on a real version of the in game credits. its heavy and fun to hold
its heavy and fun to hold
BigBananaDealer - 2026
Huge “I like shorts. They’re comfy and easy to wear.” energy.
im not quite sure what this message conveys
I’m just saying the phrase you singled out has the same feeling as this heavily memed phrase.
I’m not entirely sure, but the game disc can still be sold. Isn’t it? If it is just a code you enter and then don’t need the disc anymore, then you cannot sell it. Its basically a digital code only, like on Steam / PC. But if the game disc acts as a license, then it will download the rest of the game and you still need the disc to play. In that case you can sell the disc and no longer play the game. Similar to how game key cards work on Switch 2.
Another reason why big publishers want to have a physical release is, that they have a presence everywhere where “normal” games are also sold. Maybe your mom buys it for you, or a friend gives a gift.
But what’s the use of the box in “code-in-a-box”? It’s so fucking useless is insulting.
Would you rather it be sold as a piece of cardboard with a scratch off reveal code?
Low key yes.
Well, not cardboard. Maybe plastic, so it has more prestige, it’s more collectible and gift-able. But generally speaking, yes.
It would feel less like a middle finger to consumers. Or else, if they want to kill the physical format, they should just do it. That fucking empty box makes them look like dicks.
I just told you a few reasons from both sides. Another reason I can think of is, game cannot leak before official download day. The biggest reason probably is, because its cheaper to produce.
It’s extraordinarily cheaper to produce, and it kills the second hand game market. Both of which have been thorns in the side of AAA gaming companies for decades. Nobody else had the balls to force online only games (partially due to EU laws). A few tried (I forget the specifics), but they got smacked down and reconsidered. Everyone’s watching to see if this works, and if it does, brick and mortar game stores will go the way of the DVD rental.
To sell in physical stores so parents and other people can buy them as gifts.
OK, but why an nearly empty box!? Why not, idk, a card with the code or something? Why a goddamn box with a little piece of paper in it? At least Nintendo’s key-cards are something (shitty, but something nonetheless)
It needs to look as much of as a game as the others, that’s why they make a box for a code.
Which is a stupid reason but sales people are like this so.
To play devil’s advocate: physical disc releases are a security nightmare.
Pirate groups pay big money to get access to disc images before release so they can have a crack ready on day 1, and leakers would love to get early access so they can drip feed information for social media cred. The bounty for an early iso of GTA VI would be astronomical.
I do however agree that releasing a ‘physical edition’ that’s just a code in a box is a waste of everyone’s time and money, not to mention materials destined for landfill.
My problem isn’t so much that the box is empty (though that’s part of it), but rather: Why sell an empty box in the first place? Why not focus on digital and stop wasting everyone’s time?
Many retail games still allow you to have the full game without any service account or internet connection.
How does that work with a “Code-in-a-box”?
Oh sorry, I missed that part. No disc means you don’t own it, that’s a big red flag for me.
So people can give it as a physical gift. That’s really it.
Gift cards exist. Why not gift cards shaped videogames? Why a nearly empty box?
Contrary to what the industry is hoping, this will not allow other games to sell at $80. Customers are already having a hard time justifying $70.
30+ = trash
60% off or more and the game still costs $30 = trash
Electronic Arts. … Activision Blizzard. … Rockstar Games. … Epic Games. …
all trash companies that make stores with game mechanics…
Two of my favorite games of all time got remakes and are frequently on sale on Steam. MGS3 and FFTactics. Even on sale neither one is justifiable at $50 and $35. Death Stranding 2 at $70. Nahh. Pragmata at $60. Nope. Hell even Tempest Rising at $35 is too much for me right now. This hobby has been pushed to the extreme margins. There’s a large center girth of games I’d love to play but calling it justifiable is hard for anything over $20 right now.
No PC release means I’ll play it when it goes on sale for $15 a few years from now. I’d pay full price if it launched on PC but I’m not going to reward Rockstar for this shitty “we know you’ll buy it twice” game they play.
Bro, you’re already paying for 2 games buying it at 100 dollars.
I will wait to know if it’s Linux compatible before I buy
This company will never, and I mean absolutely fucking never, make it compatible with Linux. In order to play it on Linux it will have to be so unbelievably cracked that it will be basically free on the internet. And that will probably be at least 3 to 5 years from now. Possibly longer.
So is it recommended to pirate this instead of buying on steam?
You will not ever find this game on Steam for Linux. There will be no compatibility layer and there will never ever ever be an official port.
Same, and all I really give a shit about anyway is the single player, so this is perfect
Yep I agree, if it where to work on Linux I might consider it hopefully fully playable OFFLINE. If I where to buy the game it will probably be the cheapest version tho. 100 euros for a game is quite a lot.
On the other hand, there is also a option I skip the game entirely. FH6 worked flawless on Linux for about 20 hours. After that the save game somehow became corrupt and I can’t play anymore. Talking about wasted money. I am even more skeptical of these online games now. 🫣
Oh well, might play it when it’s on sale in five years. Also wtf is a “single player experience”? Is this going to focus almost completely on GTA Online?
Also wtf is a “single player experience”? Is this going to focus almost completely on GTA Online?
Pretty sure it means the exact opposite. GTA Online is NOT a single player experience in any way shape or form. They’re saying that it isn’t going to have that at launch.
experience means it’s not true singleplayer campaign…
it’s marketing lies… stop eating the nonsense
No, “experience” is just corporate shareholder wording for this type of thing. You’re looking at this statement from a gamer’s perspective, but this is a company announcing the price of a product. Statements worded like this are talking to shareholders, regardless of where the statement is being made. Rockstar doesn’t give a shit about what gamers think about the price, this is Rockstar giving shareholders a unit price they can base estimated revenue from.
If they were referring to multipalyer in any way, tehy would mention it directly. Either as multiplayer, or more likely in reference to an upgrade for GTA Online. But again… that will be a later update so they can squeeze more sales from an already released product, and to remind people that didn’t buy it originally that GTA VI released and is getting updates.
I see no reason to believe that the “single player experience” is anything other the campaign you’d expect out of a new Grand Theft Auto.
It’s normal to be suspicious in the enshitification era.
Hopefully it’s a normal campaign. And maybe it’s a single player mode based on the true game which is the mmo. An afterthought. Like how ESO can be played without interacting with other players, but it’s not fun. A single player “experience”
There’s a lot more negativity surrounding that wording than I expected. For me, it’s like the best part of the announcement probably. I gives me hope that the game will be solid, and that an online component wasn’t the main focus (which some people were concerned about, given the financial success of GTA Online).
I don’t know why they chose that exact wording, but it’s really weird and sounds like the single-player campaign is just some by-product of GTA Online. Maybe it’s not, maybe it’s going to be great, I’ll wait anyway, I’m not paying 80€ for this.
Interesting because I read it the exact opposite. It reads to me like reassurance that single player was their primary focus.
You know the industry has gone downhill when they have to reiterate that it includes a “single-player experience” at launch.
I always thought Grand Theft Auto VI would have a single-player mode, but I guess some people focus more on multiplayer.
To be fair, GTAV online made them magnitudes more money than the initial single player price. It’d help if simps would stop paying real money for fake money to buy digital cars and boats and such.
Between September and April, they made $12 million per day on GTA Online. 70% came from PS players!
I’m personally not interested in the multiplayer, but some people really are. I think it’s good for Rockstar to clarify that it won’t have multiplayer at launch. I don’t think that is a commentary on the state of the industry; I think it’s good communication from the devs in fact. I’m really quite surprised by how much people have honed in on that specific wording as a negative.
Rockstar fired 31 employees for forming a union. If you care about workers rights, now is the time to put your money where your mouth is.
Sadly, I predict a repeat of this classic:
$114CAD for the standard edition and $142CAD for the ultimate edition, before taxes of course.
Go fuck yourselves, Rockstar. Not that I ever intended to actually buy this because, y’know, scummy greedy company, but this really seals the deal.
I was wondering about CAD, thanks.
