GTA 6 Infinite Budget Signals GOTY Win Despite Rockstar Crunch Woes
Topics: Rockstar Games, GTA 6, GTA, Grand Theft Auto, Take-Two
Featured Image Credit: Rockstar Games
Topics: Rockstar Games, GTA 6, GTA, Grand Theft Auto, Take-Two
Grand Theft Auto VI’s budget has finally been revealed, and the answer is both surprising and not surprising at all.
Set to be perhaps the most expensive entertainment product of all time in terms of budget, GTA VI’s budget has been widely reported to be between $1 billion and $2 billion, though an official number has never been reported.
For context, most video game budgets average out at around $100 million and $200 million, and even the most expensive film budget of all time has been Star Wars: The Force Awakens with a budget of $536 million, not taking marketing into account.
Now, Take-Two Interactive boss Strauss Zelnick has revealed some insight into how the company finances Rockstar Games’ upcoming release.
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Speaking to Bloomberg, Zelnick said, “We have the most amazing creative teams. We not only encourage them to pursue their passions, we insist that they do it. We try to give them unlimited financial, creative human resources and then they aim to deliver perfection.”
When pressed on whether GTA VI really has an unlimited budget, Zelnick made a joke about his son getting married in June, saying that “we gave him an unlimited budget and he exceeded it.”
From the sounds of it, it appears that a total budget for GTA VI has not been confirmed yet due to this idea of the game having “unlimited resources”.
It doesn’t really matter if the game has a budget of $1 billion or a budget of $2 billion, because that number is going to be tiny compared to the amount it’s expected to bring in.
GTA V, made on an estimated budget of $265 million, has generated $10 billion in worldwide revenue, earning $1 billion in its first three days of release. GTA Online makes an average of $500 million each year as well from Shark Card purchases.
“I think here our goal is to deliver to consumers something that’s never been experienced before,” Zelnick adds. “Being on the sidelines but pretty close to the front of the sidelines is very, very exciting. And terrifying. Because the expectations are so high.”
GTA VI is set for launch on Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 on 19 November, 2026. A PC version is not currently confirmed, though it is expected to launch around a year later, as has been the case with Rockstar’s previous releases.
This has been seen as a risky move, however, due to the much higher margin of PC gamers nowadays compared to 2013 when GTA V was released.
And with a much higher than average budget, Take-Two and Rockstar are expecting a much higher volume of sales during the game’s first week of sale, to the point where selling 10 million copies in its opening weekend may be seen as “disappointing” by the higher-ups.
The update from Zelnick comes days after a former Rockstar Games employee made allegations of a "crunch culture" at the studio.
Posting on Glassdoor, the employee claims that workers are expected to work overtime without pay, sometimes until as late as 3AM, and that management expects tasks that usually take five to six months to complete to be finished in just three months.
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