Will $80 become the new standard after GTA 6? Early sign offers cautious relief

Since June, it has been official: even the standard edition of Grand Theft Auto 6 (currently available for pre-order on Amazon) will cost $79.99 – $10 more than the price that has become standard for most AAA releases on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in recent years. The announcement sparked concerns within the gaming community that the higher price could soon spread across the industry. For now, however, Take-Two's announcement of NBA 2K27 on July 22 suggests otherwise. The basketball game will launch at the familiar $69.99 price point.

Cautious optimism

While it's certainly encouraging that NBA 2K27 is launching at the same price as its predecessor, that doesn't necessarily mean Rockstar won't charge $80 for future blockbuster releases that, unlike the annual basketball series, take many years to develop. More importantly, NBA 2K27's pricing tells us virtually nothing about how other publishers will price their own games. Back in June, Reddit users were already speculating that other companies could use GTA 6's price as justification for raising the prices of their own AAA titles.

Whether $80 truly becomes the new industry standard will likely become clear only with the next wave of major AAA releases. Potential test cases include CD Projekt Red's The Witcher 4, Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls VI, the next Mass Effect from Electronic Arts and a future God of War title from Sony. Given its cutting-edge technology and expected scale, many players appear willing to accept GTA 6's higher price. Whether gamers will be equally accepting when other AAA titles adopt the same pricing remains to be seen. The recent backlash against Sony over its decision to phase out physical games suggests there are still limits to what players are willing to accept.