Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick is once again dancing around the subject of GTA 6’s price tag, declining to pin down a figure while pushing back on rumours that the new Grand Theft Auto will cost more than $70 in the USA.

Zelnick made these remarks at iicon, “a first-of-its-kind event designed for business leaders and marketing executives” in Las Vegas, which sounds like a banger setting for a Hitman or Bioshock game. “Consumers pay for the value that you bring to them, and our job is to charge way way way less of the value delivery,” he said. “How you feel about something you buy is the intersection of the thing itself and what you pay for. Consumers need to feel like the thing itself is amazing and the price they were charged was fair for what they got.”

As paraphrased by IGN, Zelnick then alluded to the often-heard argument that today’s games are strictly speaking cheaper than they used to be, because prices haven’t risen in line with inflation – an on-paper technicality that isn’t very persuasive during a global cost-of-living crisis.

“If you look at it through that lens, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But that isn’t the lens through which we look,” Zelnick continued. “Instead, we look at… how do we deliver something amazing, and how do we make sure that what people pay for it feels very reasonable.”

In general, Zelnick and co are concerned to make “the most spectacular piece of entertainment on Earth, in history – and it’s a pretty daunting challenge. If we do that, and if we’re of service to our customers, then the upside will take care of itself.”

For context, Zelnick has previously argued in investor calls that video game prices are “very, very low” for what they offer, but that “our strategy here is to deliver much more value than what we charge consumers”.

GTA 6’s pricing is of wider interest because it might set a precedent for game publishers at large hiking prices. Among others, Baldur’s Gate 3 publishing director Michael Douse has suggested that GTA 6 has the “clout” to normalise a $100 price tag. I am dubious – GTA commands an almost religious following. Just look at the people on Reddit trying to soothsay the release date for the next trailer. I don’t think Assassin’s Creed or whatever have nearly the same pull, though Mario Kart World appears to have gotten away with $80.

The hand-wringing over premium price tags reflects pervasive industry hand-wringing about unsustainable development budgets – even smaller outfits like Ustwo are making noises about cutting back, while the likes of EA tout generative AI as a way to grow their profit margins.

I’ve frequently tried to editorialise about game pricing and made a hash of things, because I am not a Doctor of Cashbucks. Here are some more ill-advised mitherings for the pile: $70 is already far too much to pay for games about driving around shiny cities shooting cops and watching photogenic arseholes lark about in cutscenes.

It’s also a little illusory, as ‘industry standards’ go: publishers like Take Two commonly release special editions of games alongside the base launch, which drive the figure up in return for some DLC or bundled tat. Many of the most popular games in the world are, of course, free-to-play or priced well below $70 or reliant on live service/seasonal content models that disperse the cost beyond launch.