10 Reasons 2025 Is Make Or Break For Triple-A Games

The ongoing debate about the "correct" price for AAA games was recently renewed after industry analysts suggested that Rockstar Games could end up charging as much as $100 for Grand Theft Auto VI.

Analysts added that this could help bolster the industry's ailing financials in 2025, and perhaps even encourage other AAA publishers to follow suit, though it naturally sparked a decidedly more vitriolic response from players at large, who simply found such an asking price unfathomable.

As incredible as GTA VI is likely to be, that's a tough value proposition, especially with there being more quality free-to-play games out there than ever before, and many struggling to buy full-priced games during the current cost-of-living crisis.

Then again, if one wants to be really cynical about all this, they could theorise that Rockstar leaked this story to make everyone feel relieved when the game ultimately launches for "only" $80 or $90.

The push-and-pull of pricing is certainly a tricky one for publishers, but the overpowering sentiment from players is that AAA games are already expensive enough - enough that if they can't cover costs at current market prices, then the business model fundamentally needs a re-think on the production side.