As the question of Grand Theft Auto 6’s release date dies down (hopefully there won’t be another delay), the question of how much it will go for is starting to pop up. Everyone seems to have their own theories, and while I think we’ll be seeing a $100 price tag, Take-Two Interactive’s CEO Strauss Zelnick has recently qualified that it’ll be reasonable.
“Consumers pay for the value that you bring to them, and our job is to charge way way way less of the value delivery,” Zelnick said at the Interactive Innovation conference (via IGN). “How you feel about something you buy is the intersection of the thing itself and what you pay for. Consumers need to feel like the thing itself is amazing and the price they were charged was fair for what they got.
“If you look at it through that lens, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But that isn’t the lens through which we look. Instead, we look at how do we deliver something amazing, and how do we make sure that what people pay for it feels very reasonable.”
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The only problem with this is that I don’t think the CEO of Take-Two and someone whose net worth amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars would share my sentiment on what a ‘reasonable’ game price is.
Zelnick also broaches the idea that games have actually stayed quite cheap, mostly thanks to the fact that prices haven’t risen with inflation over the last decade or so. Major releases have stayed at $60/$70 for quite some time now, which is impressive when compared to prices outside the industry.
While technically true, all that seems to me is Zelnick laying the groundwork for why GTA 6’s standard edition will be priced higher than any other AAA game, I dread to think what its premium editions will cost. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, for now, at least, Zelnick seems slightly more concerned with GTA 6’s reception rather than its price.
During the conference Zelnick confessed that he’s “terrified” of the prospect of how on earth they’ll be able to measure the success of GTA 6. Instead the team is just focusing on doing the best it can do to ensure it performs well and looks good.
“What we think about is making the most spectacular piece of entertainment on Earth, in history—and it’s a pretty daunting challenge,” Zelnick adds. “If we do that, and if we’re of service to our customers, then the upside will take care of itself.”
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