Spendy deluxe editions are nothing new in the world of video games. For many years now, players have had the option to pay a bit more than retail price — often between $20 and $50 extra — for a bundle of extra goodies to enhance a new game they’re looking forward to playing. These special editions typically include stuff like alternate cover art, powerful in-game items, soundtracks, art books, or the occasional display-worthy figurine. But lately, the prices have started to get pretty wild. Grand Theft Auto 6 is no exception.
Last week, Rockstar revealed its Goodtime State – Vice City Collection collectors box for GTA 6, a $400 assortment of branded merch that does not include a copy of the game. It’s the latest example of how the industry has pivoted to pursuing high-spending players instead of trying to reach a wider audience.
Back when Sony announced plans to stop producing physical games industry analyst Mat Piscatella pointed out the writing on the wall. “In a world where consoles potentially cost $1k+ the focus shifts from trying to attract the mass market to targeting only the most affluent with the least price sensitivity and highest preference for convenience,” he wrote in a July 3 post on Bluesky. If you zoom out a bit, you can see that same strategy at play when it comes to collector’s editions, too.
Right now, Rockstar Games is more interested in the kind of customer that’s willing to spend $400 to get what appears to be a box of promotional merch that the company might otherwise send to a YouTube content creator or Twitch streamer for free. Back in August, Strauss Zelnick, the CEO of Rockstar’s parent company Take-Two Interactive, defended the decision to go all-digital with GTA 6, saying that discs “don’t really make sense for the consumer.” So digital goods are the future — except when they can charge people $400 for a hat, sunglasses, and a… [checks notes] “Vice City swizzle spoon.”
What that really means is discs don’t make sense for the type of consumer Rockstar is prioritizing in 2026 and beyond. Elsewhere in his July comments, Piscatella wrote, “The choice to go all digital reflects a belief that this is not a market worth keeping or growing.” Publishers and developers don’t make any money from used games, so Rockstar has ensured there simply won’t be a secondary market for GTA 6. It may sell fewer copies as a result, but the company will get a much larger slice of the revenue from each copy it does sell. The same logic applies to the Goodtime State box. After the cost of the items themselves — which, at a glance, is nowhere near $400 — an offering like this is pure profit for Rockstar.
The shift away from expanding audience to doubling down on big-spender whales is probably why collector’s editions have gotten pricier in recent years — while not necessarily offering players more. For instance, back in 2017, Atlus sold the Take Your Heart version of Persona 5 for $89.99, which included the game, a plush, a duffle bag, a hardcover book, a soundtrack CD, and a spiffy decorative box to keep it all in. In 2026, a similar offering for Persona 4 Revival includes the game, an art book, keychains, DLC, a storage box, and a little statue of the protagonist for $249.99. Sure, some people might prefer a figurine over the plush and duffle bag, but it’s hard to argue that it’s worth almost three times the cost of the P5 special edition. And yet, this triple-priced Atlus offering feels like good value compared to GTA 6‘s Goodtime State – Vice City Collection, which doesn’t even include the game.
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I’m not trying to yuck anyone’s yum. If you want to treat yourself to a collector’s edition of a game, go for it. Some of them are pretty fun! But selling transparently overpriced merch to a microscopic segment of your game’s audience doesn’t seem like an especially viable long-term business strategy in an industry that’s facing serious challenges. Maybe, just maybe, we ought to reconsider the wisdom of paying executives nine-figure bonus checks for making decisions like this one.
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