Kingdom Come Dev Wants GTA 6 to Make Games Pricier

Warhorse co-founder Martin Klima hopes GTA 6 will lead the way for higher game prices, arguing the industry needs it to survive. He also admits the game doesn't appeal to him.

Ever feel like you're paying more and more for games these days? Well, one developer thinks you ain't seen nothing yet – and he's hoping GTA 6 will be the one to push prices even higher.

Martin Klima, co-founder of Warhorse Studios (the team behind Kingdom Come: Deliverance), recently told PC Gamer that triple-A games are facing an existential crisis. Audience sizes have plateaued, brick-and-mortar retail is basically dead – as Klima put it, "We destroyed retail, and we took all their money" – and there are no new revenue streams to cover the ever-growing costs of making big-budget games.

According to Klima, Rockstar and its parent company Take-Two are in a unique position. He called them the only companies "who can afford, or who can dare, to increase the price of games, which I think is long overdue and also necessary for this business to survive." He added that raising the unit price is "the last thing you can do" to help, but "everybody's scared to death about it." His hope? That GTA 6 will "blaze the trail" and make higher prices more acceptable across the industry.

Of course, GTA 6 itself is already setting a new bar. In the U.S., the Standard Edition is priced at $79.99 – a full $10 above the usual price point for a new game – while the Ultimate Edition costs $99.99. In the U.K., the Standard Edition is £69.99, which is more typical for a tentpole release. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has previously addressed pricing, saying, "Consumers pay for the value that you bring to them... our job is to charge way way way less of the value delivery." He emphasized that if the game is amazing and the price feels fair, "the upside will take care of itself."

Interestingly, Klima isn't exactly a fan of GTA himself. He admitted that GTA 6 "doesn't appeal to me at all" and said, "I am not going to be playing GTA 6 unless I'm somehow forced to. And the reason why it is so popular — it beats me. It's something which I just fail to understand." So while he's rooting for the game to succeed in changing the pricing landscape, he won't be lining up to play it.

GTA 6 is already shaping up to be a monster. It's widely speculated to be the most expensive game ever made, with Take-Two estimated to have spent between $1 billion and $2 billion on development and marketing. A recent marketing stunt in Miami reportedly cost $1 million on its own. Analysts predict the game will generate $5.2 billion in sales by the end of its launch week, making it the most popular entertainment launch of all time.

GTA 6 launches for PS5 and Xbox Series consoles on November 19. If Klima gets his wish, it might not just break records – it could also break the $70 price ceiling for good. What do you think? Are you ready to pay more for your games, or is $80 already too much? Let us know in the comments.