GTA 4 (2008) had a development budget of 100 million in (146.5 million today) it made $500 million (730 million today) in the first week and sold 25 million copies by 2013. GTA 5 (2013) had a development cost of 265 million (354 million today) it made 1.15 billion (1.56 billion today) in the first week and had sold 205 million copies as of 2025 and a total gross of 8.5 billion as of today (including GTA online sales). RDR 2 (2018) had a development cost of 540 million ( 678 million today) and made 725 million in the first 3 days (909 million today) and sold 57 million copies as of 2023. GTA 6 is rumored to have a development cost of 2 billion and it is the first game to have a female main character in story mode. To achieve the success level of GTA 5 it would need to make more than GTA 5 has made in total in the first week. That’s 124 million copies of $70 in the first week.
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The franchise is 28 years old this year. For the past 12 years there's only been GTA V.
Within 16 years there was GTA (+ London 1969 and 1962), GTA 2, GTA 3, GTA: Vice City, GTA: San Andreas, GTA Advance, GTA: Liberty City Stories, GTA: Vice City Stories, GTA IV, GTA: The Lost and the Damned, GTA: The Ballad of Gay Tony and GTA: Chinatown Wars.
This will be the first GTA the #Gamergate movement will have seen fresh.
In September 2013 Denise Clinton was doing a 'spirit walk' as a 'new age feminist' and badmouthing Franklin in front of her, and his, friends. Life Invader and Bleeter were quips at social media and its impact on society. Lazlow Jones was a blatant nod to the casting couch prior to the #MeToo movement and Weasel News was a mockery of journalism and its brazen attitude to 'truth'.
And that's just skimming the top of the froth on this iceberg cappuccino.
The constant consistent snidey snarks at mainstream culture is what made the single player brand popular, which overflowed into making the online version as successful as it is. Does Rockstar have what it takes to live up to its own standards of deviation and mockery which made it so appealing?
I'm guessing with Sweet Baby Inc's involvement, the state of journalism and how prepackaged everything is for consumers that it will be heavily barbed and censored. If the hunger for cash is strong enough it has the right ingredients to be explosively hot, but if the ethical considerations of those looking to gatekeep are upheld, it'll be the end of an era.
I can answer this one. They will do what they have been doing with the “online stories” and steer into people being absurd over society being absurd. It will have zero bad to say about social commentary like the Covid vax, troons, feminism, lockdowns, etc. it will simply be “look at this absurd guy” “look at how diverse Miami is” “lol Florida man”. It’s “safe satire” which won’t be enough to push away normies, it’s their happy medium while shifting the overton window.
If it is just a refill on GTA V (But with less calories) then the entire joke will be what the game has become.
Even if it starts off with a Harvey Dent "Become the villain" speech the entire base will collapse and something new will become the standard-bearer.
Rockstar has fuck you money and could hold the line. But that requires balls and I've a funny feeling that lunch around the conference table has been Jim's Sticky Ring and Yogurt Shot for a while now.
They have zero competition currently and the resources to outdo any potential competitor. Saints row went woke and died, payday 3 was shit, mafia/sleeping dogs are dead. They for all intents and purposes have a monopoly like madden but only have to make 1 game a decade and spam cheap online content with some goofy characters.
Not just zero competition, but zero competition in two of the most powerful demographics in the video game industry, teenage boys and blacks.
Guys who only buy 2-3 games a year, from the same franchises, and play them endlessly forever, with social pressures maximized by literally everyone of their friends doing the same.
As your math showed, the failure won't be it being record breakingly popular. It'll be because the sheer cost of development requires them to sell a number that is almost impossible at a cost to the consumer that will make even their biggest fans hesitate.
The biggest reason GTA 5 was such a huge seller even a decade later was that it became cheap (30 us) by 2016 and had a unique online that benefited from being the only game like GTA to ever go online, especially with that map size. That explosion saw the death of single player dlc because online sales blew it out of the water from “whales” who will drop 500+ a year on a game to have everything unlocked because, like you said, they play maybe 2-3 games in total which is usually some sport game, GTA, and some COD/ battle royal game. That reliability on online currency sales also makes the it easy to make it cheaper to buy to get them hooked on the basically “freemium” currency system. There’s no way this game will sell like 5, but it will sell enough to make a profit, get the whales and then lower the price to get the cheap players who keep the game active and give a reason for the whales to keep spending. Like I said, they would really have to just put out another game for a graphics update in ~10 years, and keep the social relevance online and it’s essentially a perpetual money machine.
There's a new Mafia game on the horizon but it does seem like all the big franchises have died.
Perhaps something completely new and unexpected can come in a define its own era.
Just looked it up, it looks amazing and hopefully woke free being 1900s Sicily
You'd think but I have a feeling we'll get a gay character in it and some of that True Romance racism just for comparison's sake of how things are different.
Probably a touch of feminism too.
All understandable enough if relevant to the story, it's the storytelling which might be the issue.
I'm hoping that the biggest concern will be if we get to 1925 to see Vito Scaletta being born. A means to tie him into every story or to keep the original trilogy as its own standing.
Which sucks, it impacts sales because people will wait to buy or just pass altogether because they want to wait for the gameplay to show if it’s woke or not. Either way it’s a lose lose because it impacts first week sales which is what the media pushes as make or break for most games.
There is a new mafia game in the works though.
I don't think it'll quite get that projection only because of the lingering doubts. Maybe 70 million copies in the first week as there will be a significant size of the audience waiting a week to ensure it isn't a DEI bait and switch.
Now this will be worse first week sales IF it's $120 per copy as some rumours tried to suggest. The thing is that the AAA studios half decade of releases have caused lingering doubt in the current state of gaming that people would rather play 14 year old Skyrim than any new RPG. This is something Rockstar needs to overcome for this to be a success.
If it’s 120 at launch I’m doubtful they’ll get 50 million sales at launch. I’m betting they make a poor man’s edition and a whale card edition for online.
The GTA games used to be groundbreaking adult only fare.
One of them had a stripper-scene uncovered after someone hacked the files.
GTA6 is likely to be a mediocre disappointment.
Unpopular opinion: GTA was at its best when it was a top-down game.
when you run over the hare krishnas just right and get the bonus
GOURANGA!
Yeah, that’s a no for me dogg.
Chain bombing 18 cars into the train in the original GTA demo is a uniquely joyful experience.
There is no game I modded more than the original GTA games back in the 1990s, except for maybe the original Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight followed by Quake II.
Even though I had a ton of mods for the original GTA, I really loved the atmosphere and aesthetic of GTA London, which was one of my favourites to this day. I loved that The Getaway on PS2 captured a lot of what GTA London originally brought to the table.
Why democracy will always fail:
Most people are idiots. MPAI.