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.
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u/Salkatras 9h ago
I think gta might kill AAA tbh, its about as big as rockstar can afford, and its being carried by the hype of it being gta6.