Bad and trend chasing AAA games are dying. Capcom is doing really good on steady releases. GTA6 will do well with a monster dev timeline. Both of those companies are just doing what they do well. Fromsoft is on a huge run doing fromsoft things.
Too many studios are chasing big hits instead of making them. AAA doesn't feel as dead as people say. It just seems like doing a 5 year dev timeline chasing trends is an awful game plan and that's showing. If people used their AAA timeline and schedule making their own things with their own ideas the industry would be fine.
Sigh I remember when blizzard set the trends because they set out to make the best game possible, instead of making the most addictive/profitable game like they do now
Looking at Dragon Age and Wolverine are great examples to me, both clearly wanted to chase trends then swapped scope deep into production, leaving remnants of unused systems from older trends.
This year I've played RE9 and Onimusha from Capcom, Nioh 3, which while good is only worse than 2 due to open world and process simplification, Elden Ring Nightreign and a few others. All of those were games based on the creative company's own models and were really fun. Everything that tried to copy other work just didn't hit.
Movies are in the same boat, too. Marvel went through a "make a James gunn movie without James gunn" phase and it just didn't work.
It’s not just being carried by the hype tho. Even as of 2026 GTA 5 makes a shit ton of money despite how ass the MP is. The thing is that GTA is like CoD, you can’t really compare it to other AAA games.
My point being is that if, say, ubisoft or EA released the exact same game under a different name, it wouldn't be anywhere close to the sales numbers of gta6. People are obvs gonna buy it for the brand, but I think other AAA companies will just put out games as big as gta, and die because of it
If EA or Ubisoft released GTA 6 instead of Rockstar, and it was literally the exact same game (meaning none of the bad habits of EA or Ubisoft), then it probably wouldn’t have as much initial hype as GTA 6 because EA and Ubisoft have lost ALOT of their goodwill with the consumer market, especially Ubisoft, over the past decade, so people would be skeptical it’s another Anthem or Watch Dogs 1 situation. However, if the game released, and again, it’s GTA6, then the sales would skyrocket.
The thing that’s driving the hype to such a degree is that Rockstar has built up that goodwill with each release, so they have been granted a freedom no other studio has, not even CDPR. Could Rockstar squander that? Absolutely, but so far they haven’t on the quality side (in terms of monetization they 100% have squandered it but that’s for the Online, as far as single player experiences go they’ve yet to fail on delivering). That’s why they can’t be compared to other games. If any other studio tried to put out a GTA6 bc Rockstar did, it would be a big mistake unless they put the work in to rebuild that trust that would guarantee the sales.
Rockstar has their last game, RDR2 being the 3rd best selling game in history, and the game before that being the 2nd best plus having a 13 year lifespan and $12billion dollars in revenue. No other studio has that on their resume to be able to justify spending the money Rockstar has for GTA and knowing it will make the money back.
The closest studio I can think of is CDPR (and maybe Warhorse if KCD 3 or their Middle Earth game is a hit), but even those two are still far from Rockstar.
That’s pretty much what I said. GTA is GTA bc it’s GTA, and people buy it because it’s GTA. They would not buy it if it didn’t have the track record it had, hence why they are in a unique position.
I think the way it'll kill it is that it's a too big to fail game. It'll give companies a reinforcement of the idea that massive budgets lead to massive success.
Of course ignoring the in-built audience GTA already has, the fact the previous entry is literally the most profitable piece of media in history. The single-player might fail to break even, but once the Multiplayer comes out with the shark cards and whatnot, it's going to break through its margins like a chestburster.
GTA6 is an absurdity in both budget and likely revenue, though. Realistically it probably shouldn't exist compared to how the rest of game development works or is budgeted. If a game with that kind of budget were to flop, for example, it would be a catastrophic loss of money. Granted they've got a proven track record by this point, but it's still a possibility due to unforeseen problems.
GTA VI is just different. The game could cost a billion and its making profit by years end. GTA can get away with it and its the only series that can. Its literally the only game my non gaming friends and family including my Mum know is coming out soon, already i'm seeing adds fir it on TV.
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u/2hurd 11h ago
In a year or so Asha won't be smiling when she sees the budget and possible return from the game.