Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Kayleigh Donaldson | Miscellaneous | June 25, 2026
It’s been almost 12 years in the making but it’s finally almost here: Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto VI will be available to play on November 19, 2026. Rumours have swirled that its budget is somewhere between $1—2 billion, making it the most expensive game ever developed. It’s guaranteed to be a massive hit, given that the series is one of the biggest and most impactful in modern video game history. And, alas, we were all expecting it to be a pricey purchase for the average gamer. The industry has been pushing for games to be more and more expensive, because screw your audience, right? Last year, one analyst “hoped” it would be priced at around $100. Mercifully, it’s not that bad. But it’s still pretty bad.
Now available for pre-order, Grand Theft Auto VI will set you back $79.99 for the standard edition and $100 for its premium version. For those hoping that paying that amount of money would at least give them a physical copy of the game: nope. Rockstar said “physical copies” (meaning the box) will contain a code for a digital download for the game inside a box, rather than a disc.
As you can imagine, many fans are wondering what the absolute point of purchasing the “physical” release is when it’s not actually a physical release. The price was kind of expected, but many fear it will lead to massive price increases across the board. Spoiler: it 100% will. The fact that they’re doing a two-tiered release so that “real fans” can buy the premium version lets you know where their intentions lie.
This game will make Rockstar billions. It will break first-day sales records and I’m sure it will eventually be overladen with downloadable content that they can further profit from. And it’s unlikely the people who helped to make the game for all those years will see the benefits. Last year, Rockstar fired 31 employees from their company, an act that many saw as an attempt at union busting. Said former workers painted a grim picture of life at the company as they tried to complete GTA 6, with morale at “rock bottom.” But they were the ones punished for trying to unionise. In May of this year, workers of Rockstar North and Rockstar Games’ four other UK studios formed the Rockstar Games Workers Union.
I don’t think it’s a hot take to say that I believe it’s bad to price out your fans and to insist that it’s totally normal to make basic forms of culture and entertainment inaccessible to the working classes. $80 to 100 for a code to a digital download of a game is an insult, even if you were paying your workers fairly. That you’re not is just obscene.
