GTA 6’s Publisher Says Video Games Should Theoretically Be Priced At Dollars Per Hour

Forbes writes: "While Take-Two is riding high on their announcement that a GTA 6 trailer is coming, its CEO has some…interesting ideas on how much video games could cost, part of a contingent of executives that believe games are underpriced, given their cost, length or some combination of the two."

[Nyxus]

Horrible idea.

[robtion]

Yeah I'm thinking this CEO has not heard of of quality over quantity.

I think pacing is more important than game length.

[outsider1624]

Dollars per hour. MW3 should be 3 dollars then for its campaign.

[neutralgamer1992]

Exactly but that they want to charge a base $70 price. Honestly only way things will change is a major gaming crash. People say it’s not possible but history has through the greed leaves fi bad decisions and that ends up crashing the market

Too many suits who never heard of games just want to invest so they can make a profit. They rather have the least amount of development resources. So many OG R* devs have already already

[bradfh]

Coming from the same company that charge for Xbox360/PS3, Xbox 1/PS4, and Xbox X or S/PS5

[badz149]

But they care charging $63 for the MP

[OptimusDK]

If you only buy for the campaign

[wesnytsfs]

Yep and Spiderman 2 is like 10 bucks. Disappointed in both titles for their length raise prices and they shorten campaign stories.

[1Victor]

Expect a mayor digital service to take this into consideration for their 15 year plans.

[StormSnooper]

What a greedy idiot.

I swear they are trying to push us to that with services.

I say F you GTA guy.

[LordoftheCritics]

Ah so that's why RDR2 opening was super slow.

[Number1TailzFan]

Lmao how greedy can they get, sit on piles of cash and still want more. Then they have the cheek to release half assed remasters.

[Terry_B]

Due to this statement I am going to wait and buy GTA 6 when it is at 20 bucks. Its not like there are not more than enough other good games to play.

[ShwaaMan]

I hear you, but can you even get GTA 5 for $20 unless it’s a sale or something? They have milked every ounce out of that game, and kept the price above $40 for at least 5 years after its launch.

[StormSnooper]

He can with a physical copy. Which is why they are pushing us to digital only future.

[Profchaos]

Good luck GTA v took years to get there

[shinoff2183]

I dont agree with him as far as sentiment but I do buy my games like that. I'll pay full price for rpgs but not a shorter game unless it's an uncharted or last of us type game(not just those literally) I'm more inclined to pay full price for a dragon quest games instead of a Alan wake or something to that extent.

[jznrpg]

I got a lot of hours in Uncharted playing on hardest difficulty but I get what you are saying. Callisto Protocol , Bright Menory Infinite and short games like that I will generally wait on those.

[senorfartcushion]

I go the opposite route. Games like Bright Memory and such I pay for full price and leave the longer games.

[shinoff2183]

Those couple you named are what I'd call my 20 dollar games or less. Unless it's a buy 1 get 1 then I'd try to find 2 of those types for 20 to 30

[RedDevils]

I like the way you think, I do the same. I spend 100hrs+ on RPG so I usually pay full price, single player games like Spiderman 2 I likely only spend $40.

[Shane Kim]

I do the other way around. I'm likely to not complete a game you have to invest hours upon hours into, that's why I wait until they are cheaper.

[gold_drake]

i mean, he should be slapped at an hourly rate, but you know.

[P_Bomb]

Underpriced? If you look at trophy/cheevo stats, a majority of players don’t even finish their games. You’re lucky you get what you get.

[Tankbusta40]

"This is of course Strauss Zelnick (who was paid $42.1 million in FY2023)"

AKA good ole Strauss wants to make 85 million next year

[QuantumMechanic]

Well then he should put in twice as many working-hours... /s

[jznrpg]

F U Rockstar. Start trying that crap I’ll wait for bargain bin -

[JackBNimble]

If they went that route I wouldn't even bother with a bargain bin deal. I think they forgot where their money actually comes from, they have nothing without gamers.

[Rude-ro]

You know they do not want an initial asking price. It will be seasons and story dlc’s.

They know they can hypothetical a players time via an asking price.

So I would expect less just like everyone else is trying to do and go episodic/seasonal.

[HyperMoused]

just like your mum

[badz149]

Ha...classic!

[Magog]

So if I play it for 10 hours and you say it's a 100 hour game you'll give me back 90% of my money?

[Profchaos]

If you think Phil says some dumb things Strauss outdoes him on the regular.

I guess it makes sense why Rockstar made the Strauss character in rdr2 a penny pinching scumbag I think that was commentary on T2 leadership. In fact the whole game felt like an acknowledgement of the death of Rockstar as we knew it back then

[isarai]

No

[isarai]

Or I'll just pirate it, how's bout that 😁👍

[Philaroni]

This reminds me of when the one guy at EA said "We should charge per reload" or something like that if any of you remember. Was in regards to the Battlefield series.

[senorfartcushion]

Ok

I wouldn't mind paying one dollar per hour for call of duty modern warfare 3, it's campaign is only 4 hours long

[Knightofelemia]

Then you will be crying because nobody can afford your videogames. Then you will have a round of lay offs, then you will lower the prices and cry even more when people don't return. Then you will play the sympathy card because people are losing their jobs and closing down the studio because of your greed.

[PRIMORDUS]

I just linked that article along with giving Rockstar hell cause Take-Twos twitter account has not been active since 2015. What I said: "GTA 6’s Publisher Says Video Games Should Theoretically Be Priced At Dollars Per Hour
https://forbes.com/sites/pa... You and your publisher can both go fuck yourselves, pieces of shit. How about I just torrent a game per hour? Yeah you better hope GTA VI cannot be cracked on PC." 😁

[ThEusAisPoisonous]

Well done kid, you really showed them.

[PRIMORDUS]

Someone there must be annoyed, that's all I need 😁 If it does get cracked I will email take-two the link and post it on Rockstars twitter account😎

[Furesis]

You are attacking the wrong people. You think the CEO manages their twitter? Even the devs dont do that, they have specific people for social media. And the devs just make the game and get paid a salary they don't decide how the game will be monetized. Go find the CEO's contact info and cry to him there (doubt he manages those either)

[PRIMORDUS]

Or I can just email take-two with links of their games and say I'm not the one losing sales you are. Then tell them you can't do jack shit about it which is true. 😁 At the end of the day, knowing my $$ is not going to them I'm satisfied.

[andy85]

Baldurs gate would be about a grand 😂

[franwex]

Like a night worker?

[jambola]

They're Still include microtransactions

[Gabrielmpf]

These suits should live with minimum wage to see if they would say the same thing. Greedy bastards...

[SICKINDIVIDUAL]

They don't even hide it anymore.

Sickening.

[DarXyde]

In other words, "we think our goods should be priced like services".

A finished product should not be a recurring cost if you paid for it in full already. That's like continuing to pay carpenters in perpetuity because you enjoy the benefits of a new roof you paid for.

Moreover, a per hour cost implies they're working on it the entire time and continuously producing something.

Imagine that: receiving salaries (i.e., guaranteed compensation) in addition to earnings PER CLIENT/CUSTOMER on an hourly basis.

So out of touch. Unbelievable.

[MetalGearsofWar]

Agreed. If you don't like the game, you can stop playing.

[CrimsonWing69]

Worked real well for America Online.

[PassNextquestion]

Worst case scenario you will have to subscribe to EA if you want to play their games, subscribe to Sony to play their games and subscribe to Microsoft to play their games etc etc. So it will be like streaming services atm where your subscribing to multiple services as the content you want is not all on the one streaming service.

[Games1st]

Lol hell na.

[Dandalandan117]

Bring me back to the PS1/2 era

[JunonZanon]

Modern indies may be the closest you'll get.

[Crows90]

Sure. If its a set price and you only charge for the main campaign to beat the game then yea
2-3$ per hour sounds about right. That would put most games between 40-60 which is where we were/are anyways so shut up.

But if you expect me to pay for crap side content...yeah no.

[KwietStorm_BLM]

I've always thought it was interesting how gaming is one of the only industries where there's just a general retail price for everything, regardless of quality, length, graphics, bugs or otherwise. You can pick up an entire piece of trash game and it's still gonna be 70 bucks right next to a game of the year winner. That being said, I couldn't care less what Take Two has to say about my money.

[Dandizzle]

Take-two is so unbelievably greedy already, not shocked in the slightest they feel that way

[Eck0]

a good game sells itself.. what is Take-Two complaining about

[ChiefofLoliPolice]

Bullshit.

[mastershredder]

Is he one of the Paul brothers? Greed gaming and fabricated top-tier item pricing is for real-life, faux-class, scum and crooks.

[BanginTunes]

Some real "You should pay to reload" vibes from this. I wonder how the guy that said that is doing right now...

[staticall]

So i've played GTA IV for 5 hours (couldn't get into it) in total and GTA V for like 10 hours (lost interest as well). Where's the rest of my money, Strauss? Or what, it should only work in your favor? Not gonna happen. Does that mean that GTA VI will be slow and full of padding? What about microtransactions? When will your greed end, Strauss?

[Kados]

Games should theoretically be priced based on how much they cost to develop, minus marketing costs, and minus management/CEO/Board wages.

[MagUk]

Absolute greed the day any company does this for a video game they’re getting boycotted.

[Barlos]

I just wouldn't buy games if they did that. Imagine a game that takes hundreds of hours to finish, that would mean it would cost hundreds of pounds just to play! No thanks!

[BrainSyphoned]

Always online games won't harm gaming at all, they said. Just wait till you go from offline mode to online accidentally and get charged thousands of dollars in fees. Devs were up in arms about Unity but they won't give a damn when you lose everything because of surprise fees leveraged against you.

[HarryMasonHerpderp]

I reckon he wants to make GTA a subscription. Don't be surprised if this ends up happening. Thing is people would pay it and it's a constant earner all the while you don't actually own anything. A CEO's paradise.

[Dfooster]

But what if it has a multiplayer component that has unlimited hours and more importantly what if you only want to play the single player portion of the game? Anyway if they are insistent £1 an hour seems fair, so you remove all the filler and multiplayer and I'll give you £30 for a 30 hour single player game.

[Re_Charge]

$70 for a game is fine. How much does it cost to grab a few beers or stuff from the shop. I also get a lot more time spent on my games than on a dinner that costs way more. Sorry im not gonna wait half a year or two years for a game to drop a few bucks.

[Juancho51]

Greedy pieces of shits are just trying to find new ways to charge gamers. Get fucked you money hungry piece of shit.

[Stuart5756]

This is not their way of saying MW3 is worth $3.50. They're saying 'get ready, because GTA6 will set you back $200.'

[Runechaz]

Ok but we have a 5% reduction for each bug in the game... so... Deal ?

[anast]

This guy is a sleaze bag.

I will pay $100 for a well crafted, non AI generated, sans microtransactions, and sans always online connection game; but you know it won't happen, they will try to charge an hourly rate on games that are completely AI generated.

Moreover, allow refunds for your defunct products.

[Abear21]

Preorder our game day one! Then they release a turd that I wasted $70 on…maybe if games were less expensive and more polished I’d buy more of them. The only thing making most games “worth it” is a steep discount. I may only play it for 10 hours and go on to something else.

[mike32UK]

What a ridiculous sentiment. This would indicate that all games are made with the same passion, labour of love and and budget which they most certainly are not.

[GhostScholar]

So I guess with the multiplayer component in gta it should be around 1000 bucks then? Good call…….

[GhostScholar]

The last good gta was San Andreas in my opinion. I hated the multiple protagonist in gta v. it killed immersion for me.

[nibblo]

It should be a combination of quality and time played that determine the price but since quality is so subjective that's never going to happen - just empty talk from him.

[HyperMoused]

Awesome can we get money back for every glitch, bug, hour lost due to server maintenance etc

[SaiyanFury]

By the hour? Get f**cked.

[ChasterMies]

GTA makes money based on volume and what are basically pay-to-win micro-transactions. Charging a dollar per hour amount or charging more for the base game will eat into those sales.

[StarkR3ality]

And here is why I am worried about GTA VI, I'm excited but fuck me that's up with that one guy from EA or activision that wanted to charge players for ammo in multiplayer.

dumb greedy fucks.

[Starman69]

I would pay £120 for GTA 6 if that was the price

[Murdability]

And worst hot take of the year goes to….

[ghostrider32]

Pot of Greed

[yay111]

If you cant tell already GTA6 is going to be reskinned GTA online experience to continue corporate profits - no risks will be taken