Why Grand Theft Auto VI Is Scaring Off Other Games

Hello. Let's talk about Grand Theft Auto 6. You know that I'm officially a YouTuber once I've gotten into the GTA 6 game. Let's watch those Watch those views tick up. And don't forget to like and subscribe. Smash that like and subscribe button if you want to play GTA 6 this fall. Um seriously, let's talk about GTA 6. So, uh it is Let's say 90% with with with close to near certainty, it is going to come out on November 19th. Take-Two and Rockstar have already opened up pre-orders, which means they are pretty confident that this release is actually happening. Unlike previous release dates, this one feels real. So, November 19th, GTA 6 is coming. It's coming out for $80 uh base edition, and there's going to be a premium edition for $100. And what you may have seen, especially at Summer Game Fest, is that a lot of other video games, competing companies um games, are getting release dates that are far, far away from GTA 6. They are coming out in

um September. A few are coming October, and then they're coming in Q1 of next year. And there will be more coming in Q1 of next year, February, March area. Um and so, it's become very clear that these companies just don't They want to give GTA a wide berth. They don't want to be anywhere near Grand Theft Auto 6. And uh I think that if you look at that, you might think, "Oh, okay. Well, obviously, they they just don't want to be out at the same time because GTA is going to be dominating the airwaves for that period of time, for those couple of weeks in November." But you might also be thinking, "Hey, isn't there like uh a counter-programming narrative to be had here? Can't you be the Barbenheimer of GTA 6 and release something else around the same time and still find some success?" And I think there might be some validity to that. But first, I actually want to zoom out and explain why it is so important for game publishers to stay far, far away from GTA 6. And that is for a few

reasons. I mean, one is the most obvious one, which is that this game is going to come out November 19th, and it's going to be everything that it's going to be the only thing that people are talking about for at least that day, if not that week. Um but there are some other more subtle factors, too. Um for starters, uh when GTA 6 comes out, it is not only going to um just kind of be everything that everyone's talking about on social media. It is also going to dominate uh store uh promotion. So, like when you log into the PlayStation Store, the first thing you're going to see is JT GTA 6. Um so, if you're another publisher, you are not going to be be able to pay for promotion that week. You are not going to be able to get the kind of organic promotion that comes up when you are bubbling up at the top of of the uh the sales charts, because GTA 6 is just going to dominate there. Um physical is less relevant these days, because something like 80 to 90% of games are bought digitally, but um you

go to Target, you're going to see GTA 6 banners, too. You're going to see GTA 6 promoted uh a little more heavily than other games. Um there's also the fact that most people only buy a couple of games a year. According to data from Circana, um which is a a market research firm, um 63% of gamers in the United States buy two or fewer games per year. A lot of people are going to be saving for GTA 6 around October and November. And you do not want to be a game that comes out and tries to eat into those savings, because that's not going to work very well. GTA 6 is probably going to be one of the two games that a lot of people out there buy this year. And if you want to also compete for for that slot, if you are a PlayStation or a Square Enix or one of these other video game companies that is competing for AAA dollars, um you do not want to be anywhere near that. You want to give people a chance to save their money

after GTA 6 comes out. Um which is why I suspect now that we have the full kind of now the pre-orders are opening up, we have the pricing and everything, we're going to start to see um a bunch of companies start the uh let's call it the land grab for uh release dates in February and March so they can compete to be one of the two games that people buy in 2027. Um the other component here is that uh GTA 6 is going to be dominating the media. Um some companies might want to fight for um uh space on Twitch, might want eyeballs on Twitch, they might want um mainstream attention, they might want New York Times profiles for their games. If you're a God of War laffy for example, you might look at the landscape and you might say, "Hey, I I I feel like this this is going to be our big tentpole release. Um it's going to be a really good game. It's going to be well reviewed. It's got got a lot of really interesting things going for it. Um we should be able to get a bunch of media

attention." That's not going to happen if you release anywhere near GTA 6. So, that's another big reason. Um man, it's it's really crazy. Uh I think that if you are another kind of big tentpole game and you're thinking, "Oh, maybe we could be the Barbenheimer to GTA 6." Um you have to consider that uh movies are so much cheaper and so much the the barrier for entry is so much lower than they are for video games and most people out there do not have a spare $80 for GTA 6 plus another 70 to $80 for your other game. That said, I think there's a world where um if you are a Steam game for example, GTA 6 is only coming to consoles at least at launch in November. So, if you are a a on Steam, I mean, you could have a wide open playing field that month. You just have to risk, you have to you have to deal with the the potential risk that um that all the media attention and Twitch eyeballs and social media attention and just kind of the world will be talking about another game. And so you might not have the same

sort of virality that say a Mecca chameleon is having right now. If you haven't seen that game success by the way, you you got to check it out cuz it's pretty ridiculous. Um that game has sold sold multi-million copies come uh come out of nowhere to be this viral success. Um so so those are the big things. Um and it's leading to this cluster in September that is inevitably going to hurt some of those games. We have a whole bunch of games coming out in September from Wolverine to Onimusha to Control 2. Um there are a couple more. I I I wrote about this a little bit on Bloomberg and I'll I'll um put this uh put a link in the show notes as always. Um Dune Awakening, Silent Hill Townfall, The Blood of Dawn Walker. There are a few more hitting in September. And that is going to lead to some losers because again, if you are uh trying to get that customer who only buys two games a year, you are probably not going to have much luck. That is that is quite a lottery ticket. Um and so some of those games will

inevitably slip. And what's going to happen is that February and March will be super crowded. We're going to see a lot of games that uh I mean, I mentioned God of War Laffy. I wouldn't be surprised if that gets announced for February or March pretty soon. Um Final Fantasy 7 Revelation has been already announced for spring of next year. Um I think there are other games. Feb 27 video games. See, I Google this on the fly cuz these videos are raw. One take. One take shyer they call me. Oh yeah, I forgot. So Fable is already February. Persona 4 Revival is February. Tomb Raider Legacy of Atlantis is February. There're going to be some more, I expect, in that window. Um and the reason for that is because uh a lot of these companies make their release decisions based on their fiscal years. The fiscal year is very important. You were trying to hit your estimates and expectations as far as the money you are making in the fiscal year. And a lot of these companies, their fiscal year ends at the end of March. One exception to that is Microsoft. Their fiscal year ends at the end of June, which is why you've seen me report about how Xbox is

about to do a massive layoff. We're going to find out a little bit more about that in the next couple of weeks because that is um happening at the end of really it'll happen in early July after the end of Microsoft's fiscal year. Um and by the way, if if you're wondering, uh maybe we could talk about this another time, but uh the way these companies work, especially a company like Microsoft that is you know humongous, is um they'll have budgets for each fiscal year. And so um so like the budget for uh fiscal year uh 26 is kind of in progress right now. And so people aren't going to be laid off until the budget for fiscal year 27 comes in and it is significantly lower than the budget for 26 or it is moving pieces to different areas. And so if you're at one studio, you might not have a budget anymore. Suddenly you're being shut down. Um and so that's how that sort of thing works. Um quick tangent here, but I saw some kind of people wondering and people talking a little bit on social media about how Microsoft threw this this huge um

uh kind of bash for Xbox uh around Summer Games Fest. They rented out the Academy Museum in Hollywood. Um and they had this big lavish mixer um where they invited a bunch of people, a bunch of Hollywood people, a bunch of games people and and had them all eat catered food and schmooze and whatnot. Um and people said, "Why are they spending this money when uh uh they're about to lay people off? Like what the hell?" And the cold reality of that is that that was a budget for fiscal year 20 uh for the last fiscal year, fiscal I guess it would be fiscal year 25, whereas the layoffs are going to be part of the budget for fiscal year 26, the the fiscal year, which is going to look much different. Anyway, so if you're wondering why so many people are trying to hit either September or February, it's because they want to be within that fiscal year. You don't want to delay past March and miss your fiscal year because that could have a big impact on your estimates and your um expectations for revenue in that year, and therefore um you have to report to shareholders that actually you're lowering your your estimated revenue,

your projected revenue for the year, and that could lead to your stock taking a hit as a result. Um so, back to GTA. So, GTA is coming in November. People are trying to stay away. I do think that there are some some variables here that people need to consider. And yeah, I mean, to you to the point earlier, I do think that there there could be a smart, well-positioned counter counterprogramming. Um I think that could be an effective strategy. And in fact, I think you could get some organic media out of that, too. Um just by having the story of being like, "Hey, we're the game that is taking on GTA 6," which I think is an interesting story to tell and can get you some some interesting potentially interesting results. Um but I don't know. I mean, I think it's it's still risky because again, you are going to have so many eyeballs and so much attention and so much money on that game. Um I think this is probably obvious to a lot of people, but this is expected to be the biggest entertainment launch of all time, largely um because of the expectations

set by GTA 6's predecessor, GTA 5, which has sold 230 million copies, which my goodness, that is the second best-selling game of all time, second only to Minecraft, which is on phones, so different world. Um so, GTA 6. Here's the other interesting thing, and this is a variable that I wonder, I'm sure a lot of smart people are considering and thinking about and worrying about right now. So, we we've established that everybody's trying to avoid the launch of that game in November. And we've also established that it's only coming to consoles. Here's the other thing. It was announced this week that as part of the pre-orders, it's been said by Rockstar and Take-Two have said that GTA 6 is a single-player experience. Essentially implying that the online component of GTA 6, which is coming, there's going to be a whole new online mode as part of this, is going to be a separate release, perhaps a standalone release, perhaps it'll be a free-to-play kind of its own skew, its own entity that you just download separately or maybe it'll be attached to

GTA 6. Not really clear at the moment, but the point is it's going to be released separately based on what they are implying. We don't know that for sure. They could come out later and be like, "Hey, GTA Online coming the same week." But, if it is released at a different period, then that throws a whole 'nother massive wrench into this equation because all these game companies that are moving out of the way of GTA 6 in November could find themselves running into GTA Online on another date. Or or they could find themselves running into the PC release of GTA 6. Now, granted, the future releases, the online release and the PC release, are not going to draw in the same sort of media attention. They're not going to be getting New York Times profiles and magazine cover stories the way that GTA 6, the the kind of primary launch, certainly will. But still, that's a risk, and that is something you have to consider if you are trying to get out of the way of GTA, and that's one of the

reasons that September is so crowded. First and foremost because those are fall games and they're slated for the fall, and they might not be able to companies behind them might not have the resources or might not be able to afford to or might not just be able to, for various reasons, slip past 2026 and into 2027. But also, if you are releasing your game in September, you do not have to worry about accidentally running headfirst into the PC release of GTA 6. So that is that is a boon. So, yeah. Now, we have November, GTA 6 is coming out. Then, February, March, we're going to see a bunch more games coming out trying to make it in before fiscal year. And we'll see if they run into the buzzsaw of the GTA 6 PC release or not. Um but this is weird. This is weird year, and we're going to see some losers as a result, unfortunately. Um we're just talking about big budget games here. Indies are kind of a different world, but not all of these big budget games will succeed. Um the ones that are clustered up against one another are going to be competed

competing for limited dollars, limited time, and given the state of the world and how the economy has been going and gas prices and all the other kind of cost of living issues that people are running into. Um not to mention the increased price of hardware. Um I think people have less and less money to spend, and as a result, some of these big guys are just going to going to suffer, not going to find the same success then they might have in a in a less weird year, let's call it. But we shall see. Um I I think that none of this is going to stop GTA 6 from being one of the if not the biggest entertainment launch of all time. Um I expect it's going to sell roughly a kajillion copies, and you can quote me on that. And uh we'll see if some brave soul wants to try being the counter programming and see how that goes. Um I think it'd be pretty fun. What if it's like Silksong DLC? What if they're like, "November 19th, it. We don't care.

We're just going to do what we want. We're Team Cherry." Um also, I mean, I haven't even mentioned Nintendo. They're in their own world. They've announced an Ocarina of Time remake for this year, but have not yet given a release window, release month. Um I don't know what they're going to do. It would be very funny and very interesting if they said, "You know what? Screw it. November. We're coming out November. November 21st is the anniversary of Ocarina of Time. So, we're coming out November 19th, same day as Grand Theft Auto. If there is one game that could actually be a Barbenheimer and make for a video game Barbenheimer moment, it is a remake of The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time. So, we'll see how that goes and if that happens. I'll be talking a lot more about GTA and writing a lot more about GTA in the months to come. So, stay tuned for that and I will see you all next time.