Bank of America Pushes $80 Price Tag for GTA VI: Will Take-Two Raise the Bar?

Grand Theft Auto VI (GTA VI) is poised to make a craterous impact when it launches in November, but it won’t single-handedly save the video game industry. Instead, its arrival will set new precedents—including a potential price point that even Bank of America is now weighing in on.

Following IICON, the annual conference hosted by the trade association formerly behind E3, Bank of America’s stock analyst Omar Dessouky suggested that an $80 price tag for GTA VI could revitalize a struggling industry. The move, he argued, would justify higher prices across the board for other games.

“We also heard from attendees that the industry, which is perceived as struggling, would have difficulty selling games for $80 if GTA VI came out at $70. We think it’s in Take-Two's self-interest, as a publisher and partner to many developers, to raise the price point for the entire industry.”

In other words, if Take-Two doesn’t price GTA VI at a premium, the game’s success could make other AAA titles look undervalued—and limit their ability to charge more upfront.

Take-Two’s CEO Pushes Back on Price Hikes

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has remained firm on pricing, emphasizing consumer value over arbitrary increases. Speaking at IICON (via IGN), he stated:

“Consumers pay for the value that you bring to them, and our job is to charge way way way less of the value delivery. How you feel about something you buy is the intersection of the thing itself and what you pay for. Consumers need to feel like the thing itself is amazing and the price they were charged was fair for what they got.”

Zelnick acknowledged that game prices have lagged behind inflation despite rising development costs:

“If you look at it through that lens [of inflation], that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But that isn’t the lens through which we look. Instead, we look at … how do we deliver something amazing, and how do we make sure that what people pay for it feels very reasonable.”

The Bigger Picture: Microtransactions and Industry Woes

While pricing debates rage on, critics argue that big publishers like Take-Two have already found ways to monetize players beyond upfront costs—through microtransactions, gacha mechanics, and other monetization strategies. Some games even launch for free, relying on these models to generate revenue.

The deeper issue, as many industry observers note, is mismanagement: projects derailed by poor leadership, creative teams bearing the brunt of failures, and executives pocketing millions while studios struggle. With inflation squeezing budgets, consumers are increasingly hesitant to spend $80 on a single game.

GTA VI’s long-term profitability may hinge on its Grand Theft Auto Online component, which has generated around $10 million per week for over a decade since launch.