When Grand Theft Auto 6 launches later this year, it will cost $80, or $100 for the premium edition that comes with extra content. However, other games from Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar’s parent company, aren’t also being sold for $80. Why? Well, according to Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, it’s because the company doesn’t set out to charge as much as it can but rather to set a price that still provides “phenomenal value,” despite GTA 6‘s hype levels being so high that they could have charged way more.
On August 7, Zelnick took part in Take-Two’s Q1 FY27 earnings call and took questions from investors who, as you might expect, were particularly interested in the upcoming release of Grand Theft Auto 6. During the call, Zelnick was asked why Take-Two was going to sell GTA 6 for $80, while its other AAA games, like NBA 2K2, sell for only $70.
“Look, we have said this many, many times,” said Zelnick during the call. “Our goal is to deliver way more value to consumers than what we charge them. And the truth is the real cost of a AAA video game is a whole lot lower today than it was 20 years ago. Pricing has not kept pace with inflation. Our goal is to continue to overdeliver to consumers, because how you feel about any experience is the intersection of the experience itself and what you paid for it.”
According to Zelnick, GTA 6 is clearly worth $80 or more, adding: “To say that we expect that GTA 6 will be an incredible bargain as far as experiences go is a gross understatement,” said Zelnick. “Because Rockstar Games is known for overdelivering. Our goal is not to maximize price. So in this case, what we have decided to do makes a whole lot of sense.”
In fact, it sounds like there was the possibility that Rockstar and Take-Two could have charged even more than $80 for the standard edition, based on how excited people are to buy and play GTA 6.
“I think that Rockstar feels that offering phenomenal value at $80 makes sense for some consumers,” said Zelnick when asked a different question during the call. “And then offering incremental value at a modestly increased price makes sense for other consumers. And you know, given the hype around this title, I think we could have made any number of other pricing choices.”
And it seems the price point isn’t scaring away players, with Take-Two revealing ahead of the call that GTA 6 has had exceptional pre-order numbers, something Zelnick reiterated during his chat with investors on Friday morning.
“Our pre-orders are exceptional. No one has ever seen anything like this before at Take-Two,” said Zelnick. “They are so unprecedented that we don’t know how they will translate into sales. We genuinely don’t know.”
GTA 6 is set to launch on November 19 on PS5 and Xbox. It will be a digital-only release.