By Martin Klíma, co-founder of Warhorse Studios, the Czech team behind Kingdom Come: Deliverance, wants GTA 6 to be a huge hit. He just isn’t going to play it. In an interview with PC Gamer, which Kotaku picked up on October 2, he said he hopes Rockstar’s game will push the whole industry toward higher prices: “hopefully, GTA will blaze the trail, and it will allow us to increase the cost.” The quote is Klíma’s, not Daniel Vávra’s, Warhorse’s other co-founder and creative director.
What Klíma said
Klíma isn’t a fan of the series and doesn’t hide it. Why GTA is so popular, he said, “beats me”, “it’s something which I just fail to understand”. So this isn’t a fan talking. It’s a producer talking, and he has three points:
- making games costs more than ever, while the audience has stopped growing;
- the other ways to earn more are used up, and in his words “We destroyed retail, and we took all their money”;
- the only lever left is the price of the game itself: “The last thing you can do is to increase the unit price. That would help a lot, but everybody’s scared to death about it.”
He called higher prices overdue and “necessary for this business to survive”. And the game he’s counting on to go first is GTA 6, at $79.99 for the Standard Edition and $99.99 for the Ultimate (every price and edition is on our editions page).
How the price tag has moved
The jump Klíma wants has already started, just slowly. Standard editions in the US:
| Game | Year | Standard edition, US |
|---|---|---|
| GTA V | 2013 | $59.99 |
| PS5 launch games from Sony | 2020 | $69.99 |
| Kingdom Come: Deliverance II | 2025 | $59.99 on PC, $69.99 on PS5 and Xbox |
| Mario Kart World | 2025 | $79.99 |
| GTA 6 | 2026 | $79.99 |
Look at the Warhorse line. Their own big release last year cost less than what Klíma now wants for the industry. I don’t read that as a dig. No studio wants to raise prices alone, so he’s waiting for someone bigger to go first and take the backlash.
Why I only half agree
I get the cost side better than I’d like. As a tech artist I see where the money goes: every bottle on a shelf in a Rockstar frame was modelled, textured, lit and tested on two consoles. Costs grow with the detail on screen, not with the price on the box, and the price has barely moved since the Xbox 360 days while everything else went up. On that point Klíma is right.
But $80 for GTA 6 and $80 for an average game are two different deals. GTA 6 is a game whose budget analysts put above a billion dollars (our development cost breakdown has the estimates), with a map you’ll be living in for years and GTA 6 Online on top. People will pay that price because it’s GTA. Put the same price on a 20-hour action game, and the buyer will simply wait for a sale. GTA can clear the way, sure. Whether anyone else can follow it is another question.
What I like in the story is the honesty. A developer who doesn’t understand why people love GTA still wants it to sell like crazy, because his own studio’s future depends on it. On November 19 a lot of people will press “Buy” on GTA 6, and some of the people watching will be other studios.
FAQ
What did Warhorse say about GTA 6?
Warhorse co-founder Martin Klíma told PC Gamer he hopes GTA 6 becomes a hit and will “blaze the trail” to higher game prices, which he called necessary for the industry to survive. He also said he isn’t a fan of GTA and won’t play it.
Who said GTA 6 will raise game prices?
Martin Klíma, co-founder of Warhorse Studios, the developer of Kingdom Come: Deliverance. It wasn’t Daniel Vávra, the studio’s other co-founder.
How much does GTA 6 cost?
$79.99 for the Standard Edition and $99.99 for the Ultimate Edition in the US; in Europe it’s €79.99 and €99.99.