Rockstar said GTA 6 costs $79.99 across PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S, confirming a $10 jump from the standard $70 we’ve seen this generation. The Ultimate Edition, meanwhile, is $20 more, priced $99.99.
GTA 6 physical copies do not include a disc, Rockstar has confirmed. They’re just a code in a box
I don’t understand why console players are so obsessed with physical copies. I play on PC and the last game with a disc I bought was 16 years ago, it was Civilization 5. After multiple moves I lost the disc and had to buy it again on steam.
So the downsides are that you are wasting plastic and can lose the disc. Can anyone explain the upsides?
I’m primarily a PC gamer and lack of physical copies is probably one of my top three drawbacks of it. It’s slightly different in PC though, because at least we have GOG as a non DRM option.
Used game market.
No physical, no purchase. Period.
Not interested, will be fun to check out some live streams very briefly while I continue spending most of my time building stuff with AI though.
Stop building stuff with ai
I tried, it didn’t make me any money. Pay me $50,000 a year, that’s all I’m asking for, and I’ll stop right now. I’ll even tell other people to stop too.
Sounds like a skill issue, maybe you should try McDonald’s
.
I remember when the entire concept of digital downloads was sold to us as a way to make games cheaper, and the sacrifices we make on physical media, boxes, manuals, pack ins, etc, would ensure those cheaper games still saw devs making more money than they ever would with a physical copy.
I called bullshit on it from the start. I said from the start that their profit margins are gonna be significantly higher, and they have no reason to lower prices becuase gamers are already trained to pay 50 dollars. and I was scoffed and guffawed at, and called a blind fool and a luddite and everything else.
and now we have digital download games that cost 80-100 dollars.
GTA5 made a billion dollars in 3 days.
I fully expect idiotic fucking gamers to make GTA6 earn a billion dollars in half a day, and thus rewarding this shit so spectacularly that every game that follows will also be 80-100 dollars.
And those same gamers will cry… oh lord will they cry, about the incredulity, willfully oblivious to the fact that its their very fault that it happened.
They will also cry that the game is incomplete or buggy as they keep preordering every shitty game.instead of waiting for half a year.
Yep.
Preorder the most expensive version, then cry about the state of gaming that they helped create.
We already went through this with videocards, where idiots paid scalpers ridiculously insane amounts of money for scalped cards cause they could not go without new shiny for 5 minutes… And anyone with a brain said its going to hurt gaming and video cards in the long run, because its showing amd and nvidia that people are willing to spend 2000 for a 500 dollar card.
and wouldnt you know it, card prices magically skyrocketed as soon as stock stabilized, and suddenly now the prices are unfair and insane.
If game prices had adjusted for inflation, we’d be paying 250-300 for one now.
That doesn’t mean it isn’t just greed especially in this case (from what I heard some pretty basic features like car customization are locked behind the “ultimate edition”), but in general it’s more of a miracle (and result of the massive market growth combined with no unit cost) that game prices have ignored inflation for this long.
Always gotta be someone to white knight.
Won’t someone think of the poor companies, they are making record profits…but we should be paying more because they’re not making enough record profits! because we should be paying more due to inflashun! arent they so kind to only charge us 80-100 dollars!
Reading comprehension, how does it work?
I literally said that in this case it’s almost certainly just because they know they can get away with it and make more money
$100 if you want:
The entire map / all interactive world locations.
The entire story.
Ability to customize vehicles.
All of the game’s vehicles.
All of personal cosmetic customization options, such as clothes, tattoos, makeup, etc.
All of the weapon customization options.
So really, the actual game is $100 dollars, that does not include Online, but there’s a slimmed down poor person edition available for $80 bucks.
GTA Online 2 or w/e looks like its gonna be a monthly subscription to even access it.
Oh also there are no physical editions.
None.
All digital, the ‘physical’ is just a code in a box.
Now, the actual ‘extra’ content in the Ultimate Edition is an 80s/Vice City/Miami Vice cosmetic pack.
But the reality is that the broke ass bitch version is a stripped down version of the actual game, which is the Ultimate Edition.
All that and I will bet you anything that they will have in-game purchases. Some kind of currency that you can purchase with real money that you can use in the game to buy extra shit.
Well if they keep going with the GTA5/RDR2 framework, it would be Shark Cards/Gold, and a two tier in game currency system.
Give them real money, you get in game currency 1 or 2, some in game items cost currency 1, some cost ingame currency 2.
They set the ‘exchange rates’, as well as prices of special items, and they set the increment amounts you can buy ingame crncy 1 and 2 for, such that for ingame purchase combos they know are likely, well you have to spend a little bit more real world money and have some leftover ingame currency.
They basically wrote the book on using psychologically manipulative dark patterns in system structuring and UI design for this sort of stuff.
GTA Online is a ludicrous money printer in the way Steam is a money printer for Valve.
… But with Steam you’re getting, you know, new games. With Rockstar, you’re getting bling and overpowered vehicles snd weapons to troll people with.
Now… I don’t think they’d extend the ingame currency to be something you could purchase for single player GTA6. That seems like it just be waay too much, even for them, it would make single player into as much of a pay 2 win joke as GTA5 Online is.
But I guess its not impossible?
This is exactly the case. The made the $80 version the budget edition. One where you get an incomplete package for not paying the $100 that the game actually costs.
Fuck! I wanted to buy second hand so Rockshit doesn’t get my money. You can’t just fire like 35 developers a year before the big release. What a fucking evil shit company. But yes, I still want to play because I’m a bad person.
It’s even worse than them just firing them. They fired them for being union members and trying to organize a larger Union in their workforce. This was union busting. And they did it by claiming these people leaked confidential information. Which is blacklisting.
Fuck that company.
You don’t have to be a bad person.
… you can wait untill it comes to PC, we’ll get it cracked eventually, at least single player.
Those old GTA 6 alpha leaks are still out there.
I actually had a copy at one point… I’m sure someone still does, and I’m sure examining it can be useful.
But uh yeah, fire a whole bunch of devs right before release?
That’s AAA industry standard, been that way for like 15 years now, they basically all do that.
GTA Online 2 or w/e looks like its gonna be a monthly subscription to even access it.
Source?
GTA 6 is a ‘singleplayer experience,’ GTA Online may be sold separately
Rockstar Games and Sony seem to confirm GTA 6 will be a singleplayer game, possibly indicating that the next version of GTA Online could be standalone.
… (bunch of examples of Rockstar repeatedly describing GTA 6 as ‘a single player experience’ consistently across all of its marketing material, everywhere) …
This gave Rockstar lots of flexibility in how gamers interact with the game itself–which has splintered into two very distinct offerings–and many analysts believed and took for granted that Rockstar would simply ship GTA Online as a free component within GTA 6’s base game.
If I had to guess, I would say that Rockstar is currently preparing to essentially translate the existing version of GTA Online, which takes place in Los Santos, to the other side of the country in Vice City’s crime-ridden streets.
It’s possible we could see the current iteration of GTA Online go into retirement as Rockstar moves into the next version, however, all of this takes time and a lot of manpower and money, so it’s possible that the new version of GTA Online simply isn’t ready yet.
GTA+ would probably be involved in this process in some way, potentially offering access to GTA Online by default while also adding in extras and bonuses like vehicles and weapons.
So yeah my guess would be that they do a two pronged approach of either:
You buy GTA Online 2 as a standalone game
or
You have a GTA + monthly subscription, which gives you both access to GTA Online 2, and also basically a ‘battlepass’ or w/e, monthly perks.
But with the latter, stop the subscription? Well there goes your GTA Online 2 access.
You can do both too, of course.
They already figured out that you could split RDR2 and GTA5 into ‘singleplayer + multiplayer’ and ‘just multiplayer’.
Why not just also have ‘just single player’?
Are you aware that there’s a subscription available for GTA Online 1 right now, by the same name, and it isn’t required for access? There’s no reason to believe they’re going to lock access behind a subscription; it’s become very unpopular, as they find they make more money without that barrier.
No PC release means I’ll play it when it goes on sale for $15 a few years from now. I’d pay full price if it launched on PC but I’m not going to reward Rockstar for this shitty “we know you’ll buy it twice” game they play.
Bro, you’re already paying for 2 games buying it at 100 dollars.
I will wait to know if it’s Linux compatible before I buy
This company will never, and I mean absolutely fucking never, make it compatible with Linux. In order to play it on Linux it will have to be so unbelievably cracked that it will be basically free on the internet. And that will probably be at least 3 to 5 years from now. Possibly longer.
Same, and all I really give a shit about anyway is the single player, so this is perfect
Yep I agree, if it where to work on Linux I might consider it hopefully fully playable OFFLINE. If I where to buy the game it will probably be the cheapest version tho. 100 euros for a game is quite a lot.
On the other hand, there is also a option I skip the game entirely. FH6 worked flawless on Linux for about 20 hours. After that the save game somehow became corrupt and I can’t play anymore. Talking about wasted money. I am even more skeptical of these online games now. 🫣
I’m already sick of this of this games shit
I was going to buy it in ~5 years on PC for the single player campaign…
But if they’re describing it as a “single player experience” it’s going to be a shitty offshoot of multiplayer instead of a ring campaign that has a multiplayer slapped on.
It sounds like a minor difference, but it means the entire “experience” is just reskinned multiplayer and will push people there so they spend money.
This one will likely be bad
Where are you getting that it’s an offshoot of the mulitplayer? We’ve seen the cinematic trailers and such by now. There are written characters, and you’re not just playing as the create-a-character “John Auto”. I think they’re just saying it’s a single player experience so that people looking for GTA Online know that it won’t be there at launch.
We saw the same thing for GTAV.
And singleplayer immediately got dumped and ignored the second Online came out and the idiots with more money than sense started dumping texas sized dumptrucks into rockstars lap on the daily.
Single player was “dumped” in that they delivered it and then didn’t deliver more of it. Story DLC was new back then, but it’s always been expensive and a low return on investment. I don’t think they’re going to make single player DLC. I have no reason to think they’re not making the same type of single player campaign that they’ve been making. For whatever reason, this community is full of people making up a bunch of information about this game instead of reading the facts in front of them.
cinematic trailers are just lies… they are never true representations of the game. they are afterall, CINEMATIC…
the word experience, implies it’s NOT single player… but you can experience what single player could have been, if they gave a shit.
gta5 already proved they don’t give a single fick about customers, or single player.
companies use words for specific reasons… to mislead, deceive and lie to you. they make you think A, when Infact they are delivering 🖕
There’s a big difference between “this cut-scene shows something cooler than what I can do when I’m in control” and “extrapolating the word ‘experience’ out to mean that anything single player is going to be half-assed”.
to kinda preface, I’m not saying they aren’t well made it whatever… it’s just disinformation about the product.
cinematic trailers are trailers for the cutscenes. Trailers are an actual representation of the game.
they added a word (cinematic, or experience) to be able to sell you on something that is not a true representation of the product. ie lies/disinformation.
All companies are guilty of it.
simulated, made with, 100% [noun], no added, * ,zero, new bigger size, etc…etc…etc… … it’s all the same. big corporations lie with everything they slave us out to create/produce/distribute/sell.
Okay, but you filled in the blanks with a whole lot of your imagination instead of correctly coming to the conclusion that they used the language they did to indicate that multiplayer won’t be releasing in this SKU, at least at first.
and you’re not just playing as the create-a-character “John Auto”.
Not a fan of GTA 3, eh?
I think canonically his name ended up being Claude? But no, I mean the way GTA Online does its missions is that every NPC will talk to you, but your character is silent. And no create-a-character system outputs characters that look as good as the protagonists of GTA 6, where they have human actors as the reference models and performance capture.
I think he’s been Claude Speed even back in GTA 2. My point was that “Claude Speed” is practically the same name as “John Auto”.
Oh, I went with John Auto because whenever there’s a Street Fighter trailer with the generic create-a-fighter for World Tour mode, people call that guy John Street Fighter. We definitely haven’t seen create-a-characters up to this point.
GTA Online has introduced many characters and campaigns. It just doesn’t center around a specific voiced protagonist, or hold any kind of long-term writing stakes. It’s possible some of those cinematics come from their online missions as a result.
Lots of live service games have made that effort; apparently even Fortnite builds some semblance of “story” to justify each battle pass? (I don’t play it so I’m not sure)
Sure, but we know exactly who the protagonists are. It’s the Bonnie and Clyde dynamic. It’s a single player campaign. This isn’t a guess; we know this. Even if they hadn’t said this publicly, we knew this from leaks from years ago.
Part of my point is that we don’t know how much of its implied expansive story is actually singleplayer. A game with three singleplayer tutorials missions that end with “Now play multiplayer!” can likely make a cinematic story-based trailer based around key protagonists, and advertise “A singleplayer experience”; Battlefield has basically done this several times.
I certainly hope it leans towards a complete singleplayer, but the past decade of GTA Online makes me worried otherwise.
I very strongly believe the wording is just there to let you know that GTA Online won’t be available at launch, much like with RDR2 and GTAV. I’m actually surprised so many people are reading it any other way.
Sounds like they just mean no gtao…
Shark cards are their cash cow there’s going to be a online that’s pushing people to buy them.
It’s wild you could use local hacks that were just a text file to give yourself unlimited money and spawn things and people still paying for shark cards.
But if they’re describing it as a “single player experience” it’s going to be a shitty offshoot of multiplayer instead of a ring campaign that has a multiplayer slapped on.
This is a massive stretch with zero evidence…
You could have asked me to fill in the missing steps you’re having trouble filling in…
That would have resulted in you gaining understanding about this specifically, and how people use logic and critical thinking in general.
That’s crazy man, instead you did that, and now I’ll never see an actual question you ask me.
You could have asked me to fill in the missing steps you’re having trouble filling in…
Dude, come on, you say completely unsubstantiated bullshit on here all the time. It isn’t their job to ask you to explore your stupid, baseless, bullshit claim.
(In fact, you can’t see this right now because you’ve told me you’ve blocked me for debunking your paper-thin, vibes-based bullshit in the past. So I for example couldn’t ask if I wanted. lmao)
Haha, what kind of asinine comment is this?
I think you should do some self-reflecting and look into solving your issues before lashing out at other people
Same thing man.
You could have asked why I think it’s obvious the single player will just be a hamstring multiplayer, and I’d have explained it.
Would’ve been so easy
Yes, I could have, but I honestly don’t care about your opinion and you don’t seem like a nice person to talk to.
I don’t know what’s going on in your life but hopefully you’re just having a bad moment.
Wow
It’s like this every time a new GTA comes out.
Nope. Started around after Vice City
Hahaha
I get it, but…it’s gonna be a banger. Rockstar may be a terrible place to work, but they make good games. GTAV and RDR2 are among my favorite game experiences.
I just wish it were releasing for PC at the same time.
Oh that was NEVER going to happen. They found out with GTA V and RDR2 that they can triple dip on sales at full price by staggering releases and upgrades. Rockstar will never release everything at the same time again.
They found out with GTA V and RDR2…
Not to be pedantic, but Rockstar have always staggered their PC ports all the way back to GTA III. Their strategy is literally 25+ years old at this point and I don’t see it changing.
Never say never. The console landscape has changed dramatically since both of those games came out. PC took a lot of market share, and the console install base at the time of GTA V’s release was way higher than it is now.
Never say never.
Rockstar only loses money by releasing both at the same time. PC-only gamers will wait to get it on PC, but the gamers that also have consoles and don’t want to wait will buy it on console, and then buy it again on PC when that releases in roughly a year (just like GTA V and RDR2). It was never launching on PC at the same time as consoles, the chances of that were 0% after Rockstar saw the multiple millions of dollars in extra sales they got thanks to those staggered releases.
The chances get significantly higher when the console player base is smaller and trending down. Investors want to see the biggest entertainment launch in history every time, which is doable when you’re reaching a larger addressable market. The other headwind they’re facing right now is that people on the fence for a PS5 are maybe less inclined to buy one just for GTA now that it’s gotten significant price hikes. Someone impatient who may have been willing to double dip is probably less so.
GTA6 is still going to do gangbusters with exactly this strategy, but the market is changing, and it could affect how things play out in the future.
never… they will never…
used to make good games…
now they make stores and money pits with graphics and mechanics slapped on top.
stop defending these companies who have already proven to not give two fucks about you and want to extort more and more from you.
grow a pair of balls FFS… actually stand up for what’s right and stop caving to your simple mind of, oh but it’s kinda fun
used to make good games…
The last two new games they made were, if I am correct, GTAV and RDR2. The two games I mentioned as having loved. What “used to”?
stop defending these companies who have already proven to not give two fucks about you
Where was I defending anyone? I said I expect the game will be good because the last two they made I loved.
and want to extort more and more from you.
They haven’t gotten a dime from me for anything except game releases, so if you’re trying to complain about GTA Online or Red Dead Online…that ain’t me. As far as I’m concerned, they made products I liked that I paid for. And my guess is the next one will also be something I like.
grow a pair of balls FFS… actually stand up for what’s right
I don’t think falling in line and following your feelings on this topic would be me growing a pair of balls…
and stop caving to your simple mind of, oh but it’s kinda fun
RDR2 was art. That game made me cry. It told a beautiful, tragic story any told it incredibly well. “It’s kinda fun” is hilariously reductive.
But even if it were only kinda fun, it’s a video game. That’s the whole point, right? It’s supposed to be entertaining. It being a piece of art is just the cherry on top.
I didn’t care for RDR2. Too much interactive movie. The endgame was fun but even then there’s goddamn cut scenes for basically every major side quest as well. The main story was so fucking tedious, as there were sections where you had legitimately 50% cut scenes. So that means when you want to pick it up for an hour, you spend 15 minutes doing inventory management shit, 20 minutes of cut scenes, and 20 minutes of actual gameplay. If felt almost impossible to play if you didn’t have 3+ hour chunks to dedicate to it.
I’m sorry, but I’ll die on this mountain - game stories are just never very good. They feel special because you’re a participant, but they’d be be c tier made for TV movies without that context. Tons of games used to tell stories within the gameplay just fine. I think resorting to lengthy cut scenes to move the narrative is honestly just lazy.
Kojima games are famously cutscene heavy. They may not be for everyone, but lazy is the last word I’d use to describe anything about them. I think it’s perfectly fine for a story to lean on its medium or outside context to feel special, interactive movies included.
In fact, I’ll even say it’s perfectly fine for a game’s presentation to force tons of people out of its audience in general, whether that’s via extreme difficulty, reliance on senses not everyone has, not being pausable, or not being enjoyable in anything less than 3 hour chunks.
I can’t fault you for your opinion. I loved the game, but it definitely isn’t for everyone and I know plenty of people who share your view. And I understand the complaint! It just doesn’t bother me the same way it does you. To each their own, you know?
This has some serious “GAMERS RISE UP!!!” energy. It’s a video game, and people on Lemmy need to calm the hell down. Buying games was never about “actually standing up for what’s right”. Get off the high horse.
used to make good games… now they make stores and money pits with graphics and mechanics slapped on top.
Their last game was Red Dead Redemption 2 and it was critically acclaimed and loved. I don’t personally care about GTA 6 but I can see why people would be excited for their next game.
I’ll put that in the patient game pile. I’ll buy it in 5 years when it goes to 56% off or more.
OK, seriously now: Why bother saying you’re going to “release a physical version” that’s nothing more than a code inside an empty plastic box? I really don’t get it.
That’s way, the people with slow Internet will have a nice box to look at while their download fail.
Now that’s a reasonable response lol
Some people like to still have the box for collection purposes. Personally, I agree. I think the only physical option at this point should be something like a collectible steelbook if all they’re going to have is a redemption code.
Yeah, Steelbooks and the like make sense, but wanting to buy a piece of plastic that’s just a waste of space… It’s the worse of physical and the digital format, the worse of both worlds.
(The anti Hannah Montana!)
But does it run on Hannah Montana Linux?
i like starfields steelbook. the code is on a real version of the in game credits. its heavy and fun to hold
its heavy and fun to hold
BigBananaDealer - 2026
Huge “I like shorts. They’re comfy and easy to wear.” energy.
To sell in physical stores so parents and other people can buy them as gifts.
OK, but why an nearly empty box!? Why not, idk, a card with the code or something? Why a goddamn box with a little piece of paper in it? At least Nintendo’s key-cards are something (shitty, but something nonetheless)
It needs to look as much of as a game as the others, that’s why they make a box for a code.
Which is a stupid reason but sales people are like this so.
I’m not entirely sure, but the game disc can still be sold. Isn’t it? If it is just a code you enter and then don’t need the disc anymore, then you cannot sell it. Its basically a digital code only, like on Steam / PC. But if the game disc acts as a license, then it will download the rest of the game and you still need the disc to play. In that case you can sell the disc and no longer play the game. Similar to how game key cards work on Switch 2.
Another reason why big publishers want to have a physical release is, that they have a presence everywhere where “normal” games are also sold. Maybe your mom buys it for you, or a friend gives a gift.
But what’s the use of the box in “code-in-a-box”? It’s so fucking useless is insulting.
I just told you a few reasons from both sides. Another reason I can think of is, game cannot leak before official download day. The biggest reason probably is, because its cheaper to produce.
It’s extraordinarily cheaper to produce, and it kills the second hand game market. Both of which have been thorns in the side of AAA gaming companies for decades. Nobody else had the balls to force online only games (partially due to EU laws). A few tried (I forget the specifics), but they got smacked down and reconsidered. Everyone’s watching to see if this works, and if it does, brick and mortar game stores will go the way of the DVD rental.
Many retail games still allow you to have the full game without any service account or internet connection.
How does that work with a “Code-in-a-box”?
Oh sorry, I missed that part. No disc means you don’t own it, that’s a big red flag for me.
So people can give it as a physical gift. That’s really it.
Gift cards exist. Why not gift cards shaped videogames? Why a nearly empty box?
To play devil’s advocate: physical disc releases are a security nightmare.
Pirate groups pay big money to get access to disc images before release so they can have a crack ready on day 1, and leakers would love to get early access so they can drip feed information for social media cred. The bounty for an early iso of GTA VI would be astronomical.
I do however agree that releasing a ‘physical edition’ that’s just a code in a box is a waste of everyone’s time and money, not to mention materials destined for landfill.
My problem isn’t so much that the box is empty (though that’s part of it), but rather: Why sell an empty box in the first place? Why not focus on digital and stop wasting everyone’s time?
Because people still want to buy the box? And this makes it so you can’t resell it. So they are focusing on the part of digital they care about, no resell. While still getting sales that are bought as gifts or people that have a physical collection and want the case.
I jnow this game will sell like crazy and make billions. But cmon it would be so funny if it made a concord.
GTA 6 physical copies do not include a physical copy, Rockstar has confirmed. They’re just a code in a box
So in other words, that is a fraudulent claim but at this point, who’s counting? I came from a time and place where, if.a company would make such a bullshit claim, they couldn’t get away with “but nobody would ever believe that a physical copy would actually include a physical copy!”, they would be fined heavily.
I propose we make such bullshit claims a criminal act for which the complete C suite can be jailed. Let’s see how fast companies start behaving!
I do wonder though, if the physical game contains a code, the non physical game contains… Nothing? Air? Vacuum? A black hole that swallows you hole? (Yes, that is a bad pun)
You know the industry has gone downhill when they have to reiterate that it includes a “single-player experience” at launch.
I always thought Grand Theft Auto VI would have a single-player mode, but I guess some people focus more on multiplayer.
To be fair, GTAV online made them magnitudes more money than the initial single player price. It’d help if simps would stop paying real money for fake money to buy digital cars and boats and such.
Between September and April, they made $12 million per day on GTA Online. 70% came from PS players!
I’m personally not interested in the multiplayer, but some people really are. I think it’s good for Rockstar to clarify that it won’t have multiplayer at launch. I don’t think that is a commentary on the state of the industry; I think it’s good communication from the devs in fact. I’m really quite surprised by how much people have honed in on that specific wording as a negative.
From my (PC) point of view GTA 6 comes in 2028 then. OK. I’ll wait. I have waited 30 years for VR to arrive, I can wait 2 years for GTA 6, big whoop.
This is where everyone complains about the price and then goes out and buys it anyway, letting the industry know they can price gouge us.
The older I get, the more comfortable I am ignoring the hype and just waiting for something to go on sale. I’ll wait years now. I don’t care. Lots of other games.
I was pretty excited for Dead Island 2. Ended up waiting and waiting and then I got it for free from Epic. Worked out pretty well for me.
I’m also a PC gamer, so I won’t even get the opportunity to play GTA6 for another year or two after it comes out on console.
Just like the switch 2 launch
Good thing I don’t give a single fuck about getting this on release, or multiplayer, or any of the nonsense here. I’ll wait you out Rockstar, and hope the rest of the gaming community is finally tired of your shit.
