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The GTA 6 budget isn't as crazy as you think, as Take-Two Interactive CEO explains why it makes sense

Sure, $1 billion sounds like a lot of money to you or I, but we're not in charge of a company that stands to make all of that money back and then some within a week of GTA 6's release

News by Graeme McMillan, Editor

Published on Fri May 16 2025

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If financial reports are to be believed, it’s taken more than five years to develop Grand Theft Auto 6 with development costs estimated at over $1 billion by this point — but, according to the man in charge of the company responsible, that’s an entirely reasonable amount of money to invest considering the lifespan the game is expected to have.

“Topline dev costs for a flagship title have gone up,” admitted Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick in an interview with the Game Business. “But if you amortize that cost across all of the content that is released for a title, I suspect that on a real basis it’s actually gone down. Because the most expensive part of development is that initial big release. Then the cost of supporting that title thereafter, from a dev point-of-view and from a marketing point-of-view, is much, much, much more moderate.”

Zelnick knows what he’s talking about; it’s been more than a decade since Grand Theft Auto V was released (well, released for the first time; it’s since been released in updated form for the PS5 and Xbox Series X), and the game is estimated to earn somewhere around $10 billion in revenue by the time GTA6 is released, thanks to continued sales and additional GTA Online content releases.

When that kind of information is factored in, the Take-Two logic makes a lot of sense, and we’re certainly not worried that GTA 6 isn’t going to be a hit — but still, $1 billion remains a lot of money. Of course, GTA V made that back within a week of its release back in 2013, so all Zelnick needs to do is remain patient and wait for it all to happen in the meantime. If only the game would stop getting delayed.

The gaming industry has come a long way since Pong blew all our minds in the 70s. We've got everything you need to know about the next big thing in games. Of course, Grand Theft Auto VI is going to be the big game of 2026, but there are plenty of other games coming out between now and then. Here is our starter guide for every gamer:

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Graeme McMillan: Popverse Editor Graeme McMillan (he/him) has been writing about comics, culture, and comics culture on the internet for close to two decades at this point, which is terrifying to admit. He completely understands if you have problems understanding his accent.