GTA 6 will be the biggest game of all time — but it could flop

It’s impossible to say how many copies GTA 6 will need to sell to officially not flop, since we can’t say for sure how much it cost to make, don’t know how much it will cost players at launch, and can’t even say if it’ll have any premium editions that could include early access in for an additional cost, juicing the numbers. But let’s be generous and assume that flat $1 billion figure is accurate. And let’s ignore the analysts who suggest GTA 6 should sell for $100 and assume it will be listed at $80, the current high bar for standard editions of AAA games. By that math, Rockstar would need to sell 12.5 million copies of GTA 6 to recoup its development costs.

If any studio can do it, it’s Rockstar. In 2008, Grand Theft Auto 4 sold 6 million copies in its first week alone, tallying up $500 million in revenue. Five years later, in 2013, Grand Theft Auto 5 made $800 million the day it launched, amounting to roughly 13 million copies, according to industry estimates. Rockstar put up with the 2018 release of Red Dead Redemption 2, which sold $725 million across its first weekend. Take-Two did not share how many copies that amounted to, but did call it at the time the “single-biggest opening weekend in the history of entertainment.” (Take-Two also did not explain how Red Dead Redemption 2‘s $725 million was larger than Grand Theft Auto 5‘s $800 million from five years prior.)

But the video game landscape has changed dramatically in the years since Rockstar’s last game; an entire pandemic and subsequent recession have happened in the interim. Games are up to 33% more expensive. Console prices have gone up — six years into their life cycles. PC components are [insert screaming noise]. This is all amid a forecast dip in discretionary spending and a broader downswing in video game spending. Remember that GTA 5 arrived to a pre-Fortnite and –PUBG landscape.

There’s also the open question of… what if GTA 6 is just not very good? With its Nov. 19 release date putting it out of Game Awards eligibility, Rockstar clearly isn’t worried about it becoming an awards darling, but word of mouth is nevertheless important. It’s not hard to picture a world where, with everything everywhere getting more expensive all at once, GTA 6 becomes the first Rockstar game in years where gamers wait to hear about reviews before buying it without question on day one.

As Polygon’s Oli Welsh previously pointed out, a potential GTA 6 isn’t just bad for Rockstar or for Take-Two. It will affect publishers, media, influencers, players, console-makers — everyone. The entire business, at this point, is riding on GTA 6‘s success.

There’s a meteor coming. There’s no avoiding its impact. Let’s hope it leaves the biggest crater possible.