Analyst and Stratechery founder Ben Thompson recently made waves on the tech business show TBPN, saying he thinks Grand Theft Auto 6 should cost $200. Of course, that is a uniquely bad idea for a number of reasons, but the most revealing part of his argument actually relied on cigarette butts. Thompson described a story that went viral last month, in which an online sleuth outside of Rockstar’s offices supposedly counted the discarded filters just to estimate the team’s stress level ahead of Grand Theft Auto 6’s third trailer and eventual release on November 19.
Thompson has spent over a decade as one of the sharper analysts covering tech and media, and his argument makes some sense, in a grotesque sort of way; that level of fan obsession is proof that Grand Theft Auto 6 is incredibly valued. But the receipt he’s holding up here as an indicator of value—a fan’s accounting of cigarette butts in terms of developer stress—is essentially written in someone else’s overtime. That overtime is better known as crunch in this industry, and it’s a huge problem for everyone—it’s also partly why claiming that Rockstar should be asking for $200 doesn’t really work in any sense.
What Thompson Is Actually Putting a Price On With His $200 GTA 6 Take
-
-
Image via Rockstar Games -
Image via: Rockstar Games
For fair and thorough context, this analyst’s case for pricing GTA 6 has a specific shape, and it deserves to be stated properly before a proper parsing. By the sound of it, he’s not focused on pricing around fun, or hours of content, or graphical fidelity; he’s putting a price on scarcity. As he stated:
Rockstar is charging way too little for this game. They should be charging like $200 for this game… GTA 6 is like the last great game, like…it was mostly all made pre-AI, it is the pinnacle of AAA craftsmanship. Years and years and years of blood, sweat, and tears; to the extent where you have the Twitter analysts counting cigarette butts outside Rockstar’s offices to see how much crunch are they in right now.
Beyond the theatrics that romanticize the very worst elements of game development, the essential element of what he’s describing here is a collector’s premium. GTA 6 is, in his estimation, the final artifact of a pre-AI production era, and the last example of a vanishing method should command a markup. The take is strange in a number of ways (AI game production is still quite controversial) but it’s also strange because, if you think about it, the last thing he says in that clip is a sentence that could just as easily apply to a museum piece rather than a video game.
Who’s That Character?
Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.
To be fair, Thompson was on a business show making an observation about consumer surplus, not issuing a moral endorsement for 100-hour weeks. But the real problem is that, regardless of whatever he may have intended, the blood, sweat, and tears of developers working more than they should is his value proposition. Crunch is the line item here—the thing that supposedly justifies the markup—but years of alleged overwork isn’t a feature anyone should be charging for.
GTA 6 is, in [Thompson’s] estimation, the final artifact of a pre-AI production era, and the last example of a vanishing method should command a markup.
The cigarette butt comment is funny in a vacuum, but it takes on a certain seriousness when used like this to emphatically justify a higher price—especially when, just earlier this month, three members of the Rockstar Game Workers Union stated crunch is normalized to the point of being written into UK contracts. And not for nothing, they also described bonuses that swing wildly without clear justification and a widening median gender pay gap. These are decidedly unfunny claims, and a measure of people’s livelihoods.
I also understand that instinctively, some people might argue that a $200 price tag would mean more money, and more money means more pay for the artists. That’s a rightfully empathetic argument, but reports state that GTA 6 pre-orders made over $1 billion in a single hour, and what Rockstar’s union—the one that’s fighting even still—asked for on the back of that number was a meeting. Not a raise, not a bonus floor, but a meeting.
Right now, Rockstar’s UK workers are seeking voluntary recognition after 31 IWGB members were fired in October 2025 in what the union calls union busting. It’s an allegation Rockstar naturally denies and is still contesting—but a tribunal has already ruled those workers can legally pursue blacklisting claims, which is no small matter. Disputes like that don’t really track with a hypothetical Rockstar that would pay its workers more if GTA 6 cost more.
The Maxim Is a Labor Demand, Not a Graphics Complaint
There’s a saying that’s been circulating in the gaming space for some time that I quite like—it reads, “I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less, and I’m not kidding!” I like it because it’s a silly read that’s been made a meme, mostly, but also because every clause is about labor: shorter schedules, a more decisive scope, better pay, less time on the clock. How the work gets done affects the work; that’s a universal human experience. And I’d sell graphical fidelity all the way up the river to stop the race to make constantly cutting-edge graphics from hurting the people who make these games.
A $200 GTA 6 argues the exact opposite. It says the twelve-year development, multi-billion-dollar bankroll, everything-on-the-table model is underpriced rather than unsustainable, and that the correct response to a decade of alleged overtime is a bigger number on the storefront. That’s the same labor argument as the crunch point, seen from the production side.
Reports state that GTA 6 pre-orders made over $1 billion in a single hour, and what Rockstar’s union—the one that’s fighting even still—asked for on the back of that number was a meeting.
It’s also where the AI half of Thompson’s take folds in on itself. The premium he wants is for the last handmade game, and the people collecting that premium are the same executive class buying the machines that end handmade games. Krafton has declared itself an AI-first company and dropped roughly $70 million on a GPU cluster, EA has partnered with Stability AI while its artists reportedly spend hours cleaning up generated assets, and the point of a scarcity markup is that you get paid for the scarcity you’re manufacturing.
A $200 GTA 6 Would Become Everyone’s Problem
-
Image via Rockstar Games -
Image via Infinity Ward. -
Image via 2K
Grand Theft Auto 6 could very well be so good that, 200 hours in, the math feels fine and every dollar is recouped in enjoyment. But even beyond the disk business, Take-Two is already catching flak for the pricing of GTA 6‘s base less-than-complete edition. Even still, this new pricing is looking like it’s going to become the norm, and while I think gamers put up with too much as it stands, I truly have no desire to see the reality in which GTA 6 commanding $200 is then exploited by the slew of yearly Call of Duty, 2K, and Madden games that follow suit by testing $100 base editions.
Thankfully, even Take-Two’s own CEO makes a case against Thompson’s argument, for as much good as that does. Strauss Zelnick said consumers pay for the value a company brings them, and that the job is to provide “more value than what we charge” for. He also noted that game prices stayed flat for a decade while everything else inflated, and he still landed on $80.
Zelnick’s public call for restraint shouldn’t be mistaken for charity, though, as GTA 6 is effectively too big to fail. That’s exactly why Rockstar can ship a physical edition that amounts to a download code in a box, ask $100 for an Ultimate Edition that leaves the base game seeming incomplete, and absorb player anger while pre-orders reportedly clear over $1 billion anyway. It’s very likely that they know where that ceiling is better than anyone; that’s perhaps the biggest reason Thompson’s argument doesn’t work, despite how sad that truly is for the consumer.
Even beyond the disk business, Take-Two is already catching flak for the pricing of GTA 6‘s base less-than-complete edition.
Ultimately, GTA 6 might be the biggest game ever, or the achievement of the decade; the one everyone’s hoping for. Nobody wants the game to disappoint, or the wait to have been wasted, or the people who built it to be anything less than extraordinary at their jobs. But nobody should want the price tag to be influenced by how poorly those workers are treated, either, and it’s a little strange that some people are seemingly celebrating that possibility.
Thompson is out of his depth even by the standards of the executive perspective he’s arguing from, since Zelnick has every incentive to charge more yet already explained on stage why he won’t. The business case of a $200 Grand Theft Auto 6, though, is the smaller objection in the long run. The human objection is infinitely more important: consumers should never be taught to read suffering as a mark of prestige—because a market that learns to price blood, sweat, and tears will find ways to demand more of all three.
- Released
-
November 19, 2026
- ESRB
-
Rating Pending – Likely Mature 17+
