by
William D’Angelo
, posted 10 hours ago / 1,412 Views
Three major video game publishers that spoke with The Game Business have stated they are ready to delay their games in order to avoid the launch of Grand Theft Auto VI.
“Rockstar games always suck a lot of money and, more importantly, time out of the market,” said the head of one of the world’s biggest game publishers. “We don’t want to be anywhere near that. We are working up multiple different plans for our titles.”
Another senior executive added, “Even without GTA. it’s immensely difficult to find free time for new games to shine. Time is the real scarcity for us, not money. It’s tough out there.”
A boss of a European AAA publisher said the biggest issue is if the game launches in late October or early November.
“We don’t want to launch just before or just after the game,” said the publisher. “If it arrives in late October, that means you either have to launch early – which a lot of people seem to be doing with the recent glut of summer release dates. Or go later, putting you up against the Black Friday sales.”
Two developers of top 10 live-service games added they don’t plan to launch any major updates to their games around the launch window of GTA6.
“GTA 6 is basically a huge meteor and we will just stay clear of the blast zone,” said one studio boss. “We will nudge our releases back or forward three weeks to avoid it. Of course, the problem is everyone is going to do the same. So three to four weeks before or after GTA 6, you’re going to get a load of games dropping content in what they believe will be the safe zone.”
Another developer added, “There’s no point swimming against the current. We just need to prepare to win players back once the excitement has started to die down.”
The companies stated not knowing the exact release date for GTA VI is uplifting their plans.
“If we move out to 2025, what if Rockstar do, too?” said the European boss. “Will we have time to push our game up? Or will we have to delay further? It’s stressful.”
Grand Theft Auto VI will launch for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S in Fall 2025.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D’Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Bluesky.
