Warhorse Co-Founder Wants GTA 6 to Blaze the Trail for Pricier Games

Martin Klima, co-founder of Kingdom Come developer Warhorse, has joined the growing chorus of industry figures hoping Grand Theft Auto 6 pushes game prices higher across the board.

Speaking to PC Gamer, Klima said higher unit prices would "help a lot," but admitted that "everybody's scared to death" to be the first to try it. In his view, only a few companies are in a position to take that risk. "Now, hopefully, GTA will blaze the trail, and it will allow us to increase the cost," he said, adding that Rockstar and Take-Two are among the few that can "afford, or who can dare" to do it. He described price increases as "long overdue and also necessary for this business to survive."

GTA 6 launches on November 19 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, with the standard edition priced at $80. A $100 Ultimate Edition is also available, along with a $400 collector's edition that does not include the game itself. Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick said earlier this year that Rockstar could have used the enormous demand for the game to charge even more, but chose not to.

Take-Two has history here. It was among the first major publishers to move from $60 to $70, starting with NBA 2K21 in 2020, and others followed until $70 became standard. Zelnick defended that jump by pointing to production costs that had risen by 300%.

Former PlayStation executive Shawn Layden made a similar argument in 2025, saying prices should have climbed with every console generation over the past two decades. He told GI.biz that nobody wants to raise prices first for fear of losing customers, which ends up eating into profit margins. He contrasted the PS1 era, when a $10 million game selling 20 million copies at $60 was hugely profitable, with today's budgets, where a $160 million production sells at the same price.

To fill the gap, publishers have leaned on microtransactions, DLC, and battle passes, and those are unlikely to go away even if sticker prices rise. A Bank of America analyst had urged Take-Two to go with $80 before the price was announced, hoping other publishers would follow.

The $80 tier is not new. Nintendo charges that much for Mario Kart World, and its newly released Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave costs $80 physical or $70 digital. Pricing still varies widely, even within one publisher: Take-Two launched Mafia: The Old Country at $50 and saw strong results.

Rockstar and Take-Two stand to make a fortune from GTA 6 sales alone, and an eventual new take on GTA Online will likely add even more. Whether the rest of the industry follows its lead on price remains to be seen.