The specter of a GTA 6 delay haunts the games industry: 'Some companies are going to tank' if they guess wrong, says analyst
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You realize that rockstar basically invented this strategy right? Almost every release since vice city or San Andreas has been delayed by 6 months to a year to be the best game possible.
I just assumed game companies had been doing that since the 1800's.
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Companies need to grow a spine. Good games sell regardless of what’s out. If your confidence in your own game is so low that you’d push it to a slow release date, it’s probably not worth playing anyway.
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And the first game released closed to Breath of the Wild
Oh yeah, I forgot just how bad the timing of both releases were. Didn't the second games dlc also drop right around Shadow of the Erdtree?
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...and they followed it with Cyberpunk 2077's disastrous launch but ultimate success. So I wouldn't hold CDPR as a high standard.
I wouldn’t call it a success yet. I just started playing it for the first time yesterday and I have already fallen through the floor twice and the camera was broken causing seizure inducing visuals in one of the cutscenes.
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Grand Theft Auto V came out 12 years ago and has been in the top ten best sellers almost every single month since then. It's not manufactured; you're just very out of the loop. It's one of the biggest money makers in all of video games. They spent an estimated $2B on GTA6 and will almost certainly make it back within days, not years.
They’ll make it back in HOURS, especially if it launches on PC same day. I went to the V night launch way back when. There were 500+ people in line at the store I went to. I didn’t sleep for three days after getting it. The hype train is only getting started and will ramp up to supersonic once we get a firm date. I’ll be buying a copy for every platform that I own. It’s going to be sheer fucking pandemonium.
That guy has NO CLUE whatsoever in terms of GTA hype and popularity.
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Oh yeah, I forgot just how bad the timing of both releases were. Didn't the second games dlc also drop right around Shadow of the Erdtree?
A spinoff game, Horizon Call of the Mountain, which is a VR game
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Companies need to grow a spine. Good games sell regardless of what’s out. If your confidence in your own game is so low that you’d push it to a slow release date, it’s probably not worth playing anyway.
I don’t know about that one. Games are expensive these days and if your game releases anywhere near the rumored $100 GTA 6, a LOT of people are going to have to choose one or the other, and it’s very unlikely that in most cases they don’t choose GTA6, literally the most anticipated video game of the last decade. Sure you can always buy the smaller game later, but a huge part of the sales of video games is the opening week, when all the hype around it has had time to come to a head, and you’re influenced by the fact that lots of other people are playing it.
Yeah good games will always sell SOME copies. But if you thinking that a game even releasing in the same month as GTA6 won’t have a permanent impact on that games sales, you’re smoking the reefer.
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This is so strange. Wasn't it not long ago that studios were crowding into very specific release windows ( usually november iirc ) so they could maximize initial sales? Maybe the digital release era has changed things. I mean, I get it if your game was in the same niche or smth, but "companies might tank" seems a little much.
Either way, if this is true, eoy 2025 is in for a dry spell when it comes to new games.
They aren’t crowding into those windows because competition helps their sales, it’s because they expect the biggest shopping period of the year will result in more sales than they lose. And there’s a reason only the biggest titles release in these windows.
Capcom made the decision years ago to release in February/March because they know a November window will drown them.
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I don’t know about that one. Games are expensive these days and if your game releases anywhere near the rumored $100 GTA 6, a LOT of people are going to have to choose one or the other, and it’s very unlikely that in most cases they don’t choose GTA6, literally the most anticipated video game of the last decade. Sure you can always buy the smaller game later, but a huge part of the sales of video games is the opening week, when all the hype around it has had time to come to a head, and you’re influenced by the fact that lots of other people are playing it.
Yeah good games will always sell SOME copies. But if you thinking that a game even releasing in the same month as GTA6 won’t have a permanent impact on that games sales, you’re smoking the reefer.
I think what you’re saying is true but perhaps you’re both talking about different things. I think you’re speaking about the reality of the situation whereas the comment OP is talking about the risk averse nature of large game studios. I don’t think it’s the same thing.
Also, I think I’m part of a growing minority but if gta 6 reviews are bad I’m not buying it until I hear it’s been fixed. I’ve been burned so many times
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I think what you’re saying is true but perhaps you’re both talking about different things. I think you’re speaking about the reality of the situation whereas the comment OP is talking about the risk averse nature of large game studios. I don’t think it’s the same thing.
Also, I think I’m part of a growing minority but if gta 6 reviews are bad I’m not buying it until I hear it’s been fixed. I’ve been burned so many times
You cant trust reviews. For example dragon's dogma 2 which i just picked up is a great game. But some people wouldn't know it based a lot of criticism and bad reviews it recieved when it launched.
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I just assumed game companies had been doing that since the 1800's.
Sure you can argue standard practice has been and should be to deliver a finished game first and foremost. But in the context of modern gaming and setting release dates, Rockstar has historically been I afraid to change a release date to make a better game. But yes before the internet and the ability to patch a game it was standard to make sure your game didn’t suck before letting it loose.
And my comment was more to point out that using CDPR as a shining beacon of consistently solid game releases is laughable, especially when comparing them to Rockstar.
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I wouldn’t call it a success yet. I just started playing it for the first time yesterday and I have already fallen through the floor twice and the camera was broken causing seizure inducing visuals in one of the cutscenes.
It's right there in the link. It sold more than Witcher 3, even though it did the wrong thing by releasing early and buggy.
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I think what you’re saying is true but perhaps you’re both talking about different things. I think you’re speaking about the reality of the situation whereas the comment OP is talking about the risk averse nature of large game studios. I don’t think it’s the same thing.
Also, I think I’m part of a growing minority but if gta 6 reviews are bad I’m not buying it until I hear it’s been fixed. I’ve been burned so many times
It’s the exact same thing actually. Their claim was:
Good games will sell regardless of what’s out
But that’s just not true, and game studios of all sizes know that. The risk aversion of these companies exist because of the reality of the situation.
It also has nothing to do with a studios confidence in their game. The quality of a game is light years away from being the sole objective indicator of a games sales. The Outer Wilds is objectively one of the greatest games ever made and has no real peers in what it does. And yet it didn’t make nearly the sales numbers as the latest asset flipped Call of Duty game.
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You cant trust reviews. For example dragon's dogma 2 which i just picked up is a great game. But some people wouldn't know it based a lot of criticism and bad reviews it recieved when it launched.
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It’s the exact same thing actually. Their claim was:
Good games will sell regardless of what’s out
But that’s just not true, and game studios of all sizes know that. The risk aversion of these companies exist because of the reality of the situation.
It also has nothing to do with a studios confidence in their game. The quality of a game is light years away from being the sole objective indicator of a games sales. The Outer Wilds is objectively one of the greatest games ever made and has no real peers in what it does. And yet it didn’t make nearly the sales numbers as the latest asset flipped Call of Duty game.
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Companies need to grow a spine. Good games sell regardless of what’s out. If your confidence in your own game is so low that you’d push it to a slow release date, it’s probably not worth playing anyway.
that's not true. games can absolutely get fucked by release dates coinciding with big names. and have.
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But also don't forget that the amount of gamers is larger today than in 2013. Gaming is much more mainstream, and so even 97% of the install base is still disappointing considering steam grew by, what, 3x or something in terms of average monthly users?
Another source I found is that the amount of total gamers grew by roughly 50% from 2013 to 2025. But yeah, I just did a quick skin numbers are not precise
But still, 97% is disappointing considering the general demographic was supposed to grow. And then, in reality, it's just 67% too
Yeah that's a good point.
If gaming grew and the total userbase is the same now, then it's smaller by percentage.
That must been that PC is just exploding in popularity over the time period in question.
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Good for you! For GTA VI, I definitely wanna play it as quickly as possible and £70 is a pretty reasonable price for that.
Why the rush?
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I don't know why but I couldn't give two shits about GTA6, maybe I'm just burned out on AAA games
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I don't know why but I couldn't give two shits about GTA6, maybe I'm just burned out on AAA games
maybe I’m just burned out on AAA games
I know I am.
