Warhorse COO wants GTA 6 to set a new $80 price standard for triple-A games

The COO of Kingdom Come: Deliverance developer, Warhorse, says he hopes Grand Theft Auto 6 ‘blazes the trail’ for other triple-A video games to raise their prices.

Like many Nintendo releases, GTA 6 will launch at the higher price point of $80 when it finally releases next month – and according to Rockstar parent Take-Two, its more expensive $100 edition is its top seller.

Warhorse co-founder Martin Klima told PC Gamer in a recent interview that even though the Grand Theft Auto series “doesn’t appeal to me at all,” he hopes it performs well so that other developers can benefit from its pricing precedent.

“The last thing you can do is to increase the unit price,” Klima said, when talking about the recent troubles facing the games industry, which has been ravaged by layoffs and closures.

“That would help a lot, but everybody’s scared to death about it. Now, hopefully, GTA will blaze the trail, and it will allow us to increase the cost.”

Rockstar and Take-Two are the only ones “who can afford, or who can dare, to increase the price of games, which I think is long overdue and also necessary for this business to survive,” Klima said. “So I wish them all the luck.”

The games industry is facing pressure to raise prices, as the cost of triple-A development continues to increase, while inflation has reduced the value of the traditional $60-$70 price point.

However, according to a recent survey, 62% of the most engaged video game players no longer buy full-price releases, instead waiting for discounts in the weeks and months after games’ initial releases.

Commenting on the findings, the Generations in Play report’s Karl Stewart said that Gen X “come from a point of view of midnight opening, full price games, console base… [they] want to get everything they possibly can, get as much juice out of that lemon as possible.

“Whereas you look at Gen Z, who live in a world of platforms… games don’t end, but social and community become a massive part of their DNA. So they want to be a part of a community where they’re able to say, ‘I’m the most informed. I know most about this game.’”