Everyone wants to play Rockstar Games’ upcoming heist-’em-up Grand Theft Auto 6–so much so that some 1.5 million Americans are projected to call in sick to work on November 19 to play the game, which an economics professor estimates will set the country back roughly $1 billion.
According to an International Business Times report, economics professor José García Montalvo projected that the 1.5 million workers planning to play hooky to traipse around Leonida next month could cost America a boatload of money. If each worker has an annual salary of $70,000, Montalvo suggests that the math works out to $1 billion, with GTA 6 publisher Take-Two Interactive estimated to make that same amount on November 19.
That’s the catch. The American economy isn’t necessarily losing money; the bills are just changing hands, from the pockets of the country writ large to those of one multi-billion-dollar corporation. I’m sure you know the saying: The rich get richer.
It’s worth noting, though, that this isn’t an official forecast. Rather, Montalvo’s estimation is a mere academic projection.
However, the phenomenon has a precedent in the hype surrounding Grand Theft Auto 5’s launch in September 2013, when an IGN poll found that 46% of its nearly 11,000 respondents planned to take the day off work as a holiday for “GTA flu.” That self-selected poll measured readers’ intentions, not actual workplace absences across US cities like Los Angeles and New York. Still, it’s evidence that Rockstar Games’ games are a moment in pop culture, creating a monoculture we haven’t had in a minute.
And some people are very serious about taking time off to play the game. Bud Burruss, a streamer and father of three, told the Wall Street Journal in September that he plans to take a five-day vacation. Others took to social media to share similar sentiments, with some couples drafting contracts and labeling the act of playing the game as “cheating.” Even the military is offering some days off for its soldiers at Fort Stewart, Georgia, to play GTA 6, so you know the “GTA flu” is real.