GTA 6 is easily the most anticipated game in the world right now. And whether it ends up coming out this year (as publisher Take-Two promises) or in 2026, there’s a chance it could shake up game pricing.
Analyst firm Epyllion writes there is “hope" within the industry GTA 6 will see game pricing bumped up to $100, from the current standard of $70, as reported by VGC.
This isn’t good news for gamers, of course, but could be viewed as a necessary step given the industry has been ravaged by redundancies — of layoffs to use the US term — over the last couple of years.
The last grand shake-up we saw in video game pricing was in 2020, when Sony announced its top-tier games would be sold for $70 rather than $60. That equates to £59.99 for UK buyers.
Microsoft followed suit in 2023, with titles including Starfield and the somewhat disastrous Redfall.
How much do games really cost in 2025?
In reality, though, those standard prices only tell half the story of how much games cost these days.
Back in the last console generation, and the one before, you might have a special edition of a game that included an ugly plastic figurine or similar piece of tat. Nowadays, many big releases come in several flavours, whose pricing fires off into the stratosphere without necessarily including anything physical.
Let’s take Civilisation VII as an example. Over at the PlayStation Store you can pay £59.99 for the basic edition, £89.99 for a side dish of additional content and five days of early access. Or £119.99 for the Founder’s Edition, with a smattering of additional DLC.
£30’s worth? Not by our estimation, but you can bet plenty of Civ megafans will pay for it.
Want to know the real wild part? There’s a cogent argument games should cost even more than that. At its release in 1992, Street Fighter II for the SNES cost $69.99 (even more in some retailers).
Accounting for inflation, that’s equivalent to upwards of $155 today.
Street Fighter II was in development for a couple of years, with an estimated team of around 40 people. GTA 6? It has been in the works for more than a decade, and has thousands of people working on it across multiple studios.
Does that mean we’re happy to drop £90-100 on it? Heck no — but you can see how the argument can be historically justified.
Publisher Take-Two says GTA 6 is due this autumn. And the next point at which it could announce a delay is on February 10, the date of its next investor earnings call. Let's hope it doesn't.
