GTA 6 Could Cost Billions Of Dollars To Develop Making It The Most Expensive Game Ever

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Take-Two, the game's publisher, has never released numbers on how much GTA V cost to develop, but estimates are in the range of $250 million dollars. That's an incredible amount of money, but the total is likely much higher given that Rockstar has supported the game for a decade now with continual free content updates. Not to say that it didn't make its money, of course, but that figure gives some context for this next one.

The latest report from notorious rumormongers Dexerto Gaming claims that the sequel, Grand Theft Auto VI, will be "the most expensive game of all time, costing between $1-2 billion." If that's accurate, it will land the game neatly at the top of the list of "most expensive video games to develop," a position currently occupied by Cloud Imperium Games' Star Citizen and its more than $500m funding.

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If you wonder how Take-Two could possibly afford such a thing, well, GTA V has generated nearly $8 billion for the company since its original 2013 release. The majority of that value comes from "Shark Card" micro-transactions for the continually-updated online mode of the title, rather than from up-front sales, although GTA V was no slouch in that department either with over 150 million copies sold.

Hearsay flies constantly (as with any property this massive), but the more reliable rumors we've heard include that the game will be set in Miami analog Vice City, that it will make use of incredible new technology (particularly as it regards NPC behavior), and that it will retain the multiple-protagonists gimmick from GTA V. Rapper 50 Cent may have a role in the game, and reportedly, GTA 6 will have parkour movement along the lines of titles like Sleeping Dogs.

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GTA Online is barely-recognizable from its launch state these days.

Whatever happens, it's a pretty safe bet that GTA 6 will be a huge hit for the company. Even if it doesn't make back its development cost on up-front software sales, you can bet that it will have plenty of microtransactions for players to funnel their savings into. In GTA Online, it's extremely time-consuming to make progress on your criminal empire without spending real money, and that will probably continue to be the case in GTA VI. After all, why mess with a winning formula?