GTA 6 for $100 reports have been taken wildly out of context

Here we go again: There's talk of another price hike for video games, and that GTA 6 could help introduce a blisteringly-high $100 MSRP for future video games. But these reports have been taken significantly out of context.

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Gamers don't want to pay $100 for new games. They don't even want to pay $70 for new games, as our data shows. But the industry isn't growing, and companies want better profits. There's a lot of different ways to grow gaming, but one, raising game prices to $100, has commanded headlines with its shock value.

So where did all this come from? The "AAA games should cost more" discussion was first sparked by commentary from Larian Studios publishing director Michael Douse, who also said that "everyone is waiting for GTA 6" to raise prices first. This was repeated through daily news cycles, reinforcing the idea.

"Almost all games should cost more at a base level because the cost of making them (inflation, for one) is outpacing pricing trends. But I don't think we'll get there with DLC promises so much as quality & communication. Everyone's just waiting for GTA6 to do it lol," Douse said on Twitter.

This brings us to the present day with Epyllion's recent video games industry research report, which flat out lays the possibility of GTA 6 boosting game prices. The report, which is over 200 pages, has eleven different ideas on how gaming could grow.

Raising game prices using GTA 6's launch is dead last, as ordered "logically rather than in order of monetary value, significant, timing, etc."

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An important note about Epyllion: It's a venture firm and holding company, not an analyst firm. The report is a combination of data gleaned from a multitude of sources, including analyst firms like IDG Consulting and Newzoo, as well as unofficial estimated data from sites like VG Chartz.

There are exactly three slides arguing game price increases as related to GTA 6's release. We've included the slides below.

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The main argument is three-fold:

• Game budgets are rising
• GTA 6's release will take attention and spending away from other console games, so a price hike could help "stabilize" this expected effect
• The money that companies make from physical game sales is shrinking

On the whole, though, the arguments aren't entirely persuasive enough to potentially significantly disrupt the video games industry's pathway forward at a crucial time of course-correction, impact even the current maintained course through 2020's $70 pricing, and potentially tarnish the reputation of one of the most beloved video games makers on the planet.

Now seems like a bad time to take on unnecessary risk through another brute-force price hike. No, developers and publishers would do better to innovate their products and businesses to boost the earnings potential. Even Rockstar Games has done these relatively recently with the introduction of GTA+, a subscription service centered around GTA Online.