GTA 6 will cost $80
bbc.com
bbc.com
I could imagine PC gamers are less interested in online and the whole shark card thing though. IMO that's really damaged the GTA experience.
Though I rarely game on the TV, for me it's uncomfortable.
I was too fixated on a classical gaming PC with mouse and keyboard.
- Steam's Big Picture mode works, but there are lots of sharp edges (launcher support being the biggest).
- PC versions of games frequently have no way to switch to a couch-friendly UI (loading menus designed for PCs)
- The power management and hardware setup is not at all streamlined
- Controller management can be painful
- Streaming apps mostly need to work in a browser, which won't have controller support.
Not sure why they're doing that farce even. Just let people buy the code online. Who wants a plastic packet for this much cost?
But mostly the goal is to remove the resale/rent/borrow ability of people who purchase this game unfortunately.
The bad PR was insane. They backtracked. But now I wish I had this. I use the Xbox Series S for travel and it doesn’t have a physical drive so I can’t play my physical discs.
It’s even worse because you can find used games on eBay for <$5 but those same games to buy digitally are >$20.
I've been on a retro gaming binge lately because I strongly believe the constraints & limitations of older platforms yielded a better product imo.
Having the game of that size is the only excuse I accept for not releasing a physical version, but because no blu-ray will handle it, it starts darker days for game preservation. I love the fact that I will be able to undust my old PS4 in a couple of years and play GTA V without relying on the PlayStation Store. But we knew these days were counted.
Another is that there are very often below-RRP deals for games in advance, but if you buy it on launch day you'll be paying RRP.
Though I think there have been some games that let you start playing two or three days earlier.
so personally im just gonna wait a year for the PC release (a year max 2 is most likely)
I saw the no DVD and was initially devastated. I'm in two minds - I saw one post that basically said "it won't contain a DVD at launch".. if I read between the lines, though I'm not sure I see the value incentive for Rockstar, but...
If they hypothetically launched with physical boxes with digital download codes, okay... This would definitely be in the name of re-sellers (as they've stated). But this is the same as piracy, which has always been, not that "we need to stop people from pirating our games for eternity" but "we need to stop people pirates our game for X months after launch", which makes sense (the piracy party).
So, I'm wondering, if they actually begin releasing physical disks (offline, re-sellable, usable in 20 years), say, 6-12 months after releasing the game.. would that work? I mean, for me, assuming it's the equal block-buster to the franchise I adore (in a varying sense), then I might not mind too much to pick up a copy after 6-12 months (I don't care about bleeding edge).. but... would this work? If we assume the first 12M of buyers can't resell, would the people who buy the game after 12M actually bring a great number to the second hand market.. perhaps not?
I really have the idea of having games that I love in physical form that I know it can't be taken away.. similar to reading a book that you end up reading and know you want to come back to anytime in the future.. and this would _suck_ if I couldn't get a copy (and I assume all PC versions would be full of online-only DRM stuff anyway).
Ergh, I dunno
And to answer your question, most consumers don't care. The convenience of being able to buy with a few clicks and download immediately without going to a store or waiting for the mail is far more beneficial to most people than being able to locally archive or replay in 20 years.
This is a totally fair point and literally something I haven't even considered.
> most consumers don't care
I know.. I know.. I mostly commented because the linked article _does_ speak about it and that it implied people weren't happy (mostly for re-sell not for archival purposes). But, yes, I get that
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/18hkrvj/you_c...
It's effectively impossible to release a "gold version" game to the quality standards of ~1990 physical media, in 2026.
The surface area for potential gameplay bugs is too large: it'd take another decade of QA polish.
So even if you have physical media for the release day version of a game, what can you do with that? Play a buggy version?
To GP's point about post-release physical editions, it makes more sense to sell something later that rolls up the most critical post-release patches and content.
As far as bugs go, the solution for this has been and continues to be that after you install the game from the disc, you download a patch to update it. It's been this way for almost 20 years now (XBox 360 and PS3 both launched with explicit support for this).
Technically correct, but not really correct. It's hard to think of a game in the last decade where I've inserted a physical disk an been able to play without having to download a giant update first. Sometimes literally impossible - the installer disk isn't a complete game until you download an update
For the sake of participating in a discussion, avoid doing that in the future.
I used to think physical media was great, but optical discs do have a finite shelf life. DRM-free is the important part, so you can make your own backups (like you're doing with your 360).
I don't balance my checkbook based on what other people spend, and presuming that those things have anything to do with perceived quality is a fools' errand with the multitude of counter examples one can bring up of AAA flops.
>lesser games
this thing isn't even out yet.
how many examples of over-produced and under-delivered expensive garbage in film, media, video games & art do we need to produce until people disconnect the two concepts of quality and cost ?
edit : I used cadre the wrong way
Depends on your gaming tastes. I haven't really enjoyed any of the GTAs for longer than 2 hours, while RDR2 I also stopped playing after about 3 hours out of boredom - and similar to the GTA series, general frustrations involving the controls. Rockstar just doesn't fit my tastes, which is certainly a problem that rests with me
It doesn't, if we're talking about consensus.
https://www.metacritic.com/company/rockstar-games/
That's a lot of green, and your or my opinion on any particular game isn't relevant to the assertion that Rockstar has a stellar track record in making games people seem to love.
RDR2 is very much a movie game so ofc it's popular when at this point most new "gamer" love playing cutscenes.
Rockstar hasn’t missed, you’re an outlier.
Trying to act like Rockstar missed here is like sticking your head in the sand. It doesn't matter that you didn't like it, they accomplished every goal the game had.
Flipping through each page of a book to find the item you want is developer self-pleasuring.
People don't like RDR2 because of its gameplay but story, immersion and feeling. Which would be great for a movie but side dish for a game.
A good piece of art changes your consciousness and makes you a different person. The best part of a book for me is not in the reading but how it becomes a part of my own imaginative engine and a new lens with which I can view the world.
I play games too... but I'm aware they are cynical time-vampires that pad out their content with repetitive grinding to jump virtual hurdles hijacking my reward centre with one-arm-bandit psychosis to make draining my life away by a rng feel "entertaining".
Even for books, a book that one enjoys reading so much that they return to multiple times is providing more entertainment value than one read once and given away.
For me, f- them and their shitty products.
Paying customers getting the worse experience is par for the course now.
You mean those huge worlds that are mostly empty and filled with copy paste content? I take a hand crafted linear experience over open world any day. Best example is Dark Souls 1 and Elden Ring.
Not that it'll affect me personally; I'm not buying this game after Rockstar's [union busting][1]!
That said, I think I've bought GTA5 two or three times for various platforms over the years. I doubt we'll see GTA6 on sale for years.
As they say in the automotive industry, buy once, cry once. (Pay more for the known good thing, rather than buying the cheap third party things... I'm looking at you, $30 clockspringexperts.com that I have replaced 3 times in the past 4 years... instead of buying the $300 toyota part once)
Personally, things got a little too realistic for me around the time of GTA IV. The earlier games felt like cartoony fun but I started to feel bad about the stuff I was doing in IV. I tried V a year or two back (I think they've maybe remastered it since?) but it ran so terribly on the Steam Deck that I refunded it.
You're telling me, you're building a product for adults who spend $1,500 or more on a PC, and you're selling your software that took a Burj Khalifa amount of effort to develop to these people for 5% of the cost of the machine they're going to run it off of?
It should probably cost closer to $180 bucks instead of $80.
Then it will hit PC. Mods will breathe new life into it. Cracks will dispense away with the invasive framerate-killing mechanisms. An underground P2P multiplayer client will be developed and it will get wildly successful. Rockstar will sue, then finally settle.
That's $159.89 in today's dollars.
https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=50&year1=20010...
That's $177 today.
But at least I still have a plastic rectangle 44 years later. I'd lose a download code in a matter of months.
I also don’t think the extra $20 will hurt GTA’s sales much. What I’m more worried about is whether other 3A games will use Rockstar’s price increase as an excuse to raise their own prices . And I’m even more worried that GTA may come out with a pile of DEI slop, which would really feel like another Atari crash.
So what's the point of that? Why waste all that money and energy shipping "physical copies" when it could just be an email
What's interesting to me is that game studios have less to loose here than other OEMs. With equipment like shoes, outdoor gear, or cars, having the physical product out in stores does a lot to sell it: you have to try on shoes, driving a car builds attachment, it's also nice to check the build quality of your tent or whatever.
With games, you generally just have to play it / read the reviews, and you can trial it directly at home in a lot of cases.
I find it very silly, utterly unnecessary, but it is far from unprecedented [0] for this industry. I think it's very problematic for preservation and will only lead to more interest from groups trying to bypass their DRM because of this.
[0] https://www.shacknews.com/article/108552/cardboard-disc-incl...
A nice box with artwork like a map and other goodies is still great. I always found those maps useful and aesthetically pleasing.
Having a playable version of a game physically is great and I’d buy a version with some physical storage medium if it ever hits the shelves. Maybe the game needs more time for that. Or a different data carrier.
Edit: added PS5 disk size and preference of a physical game
Every shop selling it will be advertising it in their shop windows and on the shop floor. That's free marketing!
Also I imagine there will be bundle deals with consoles and other accessories.
This effectively eliminates buying and re-selling of the game.
Do i like the premium paywall stuff large publishers are doing? No. But this one is comparatively minor.
Sometimes a game comes out that i would really love to play and then i check the store page and feel like if i just buy the game for $80, i'm automatically being shafted by missing out on so many things. It's weird, but it makes me not want to buy these things sometimes. It does seem to work, since all my friends usually go for the $120+ variant.