GTA 6 will bring 'big economic boost' to gaming in 2025, PlayStation's indie liaison says

PlayStation's indie liaison believes that Grand Theft Auto 6's theoretical megaton success will help the entire video games industry grow, and that GTA 6 will not necessarily compete with indie games--there's room for both on the market.

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For all intents and purposes, it's been half-joked that GTA 6 will save the games industry. The mantra "survive till '25" had been thrown around internally among game developers for a reason--it was believed GTA 6 would spark platform sales of all kinds, and new users would be keen to buy a bunch of new games to fill out their libraries. If you could hold on until GTA 6 launched, you might have a better shot in absorbing some earnings from GTA 6's staggering industry-spanning network effects.

Industry analysts have made their predictions on GTA 6's success, but now we've heard some quick words from someone who works inside PlayStation's indie department. At GDC 2025, PlayStation's head of creators Greg Rice told GamesRadar that GTA 6's launch offers an opportunity to developers to attract spending from a new wave of users who bought in to play Rockstar's latest game.

"It'll be the opportunity to get in on the new console generation and see what else is out there. So it's definitely gonna be a big economic boost for the games industry, and will be a multi-billion dollar title, but I don't think that it's at competition with [indie games].

"I think the industry is matured enough that there's space for that and for other things as well. It's gonna be a combination of 'there will be games that will be successful around GTA time because they're totally different,' but it'll also bring a lot more people back into the ecosystem."

GTA 6 is still set to release in Fall 2025, and the date has been reiterated by Take-Two Interactive. Some, like reporter Jason Schreier, believe GTA 6 could be delayed and release in 2026 instead.

Here's a quick snippet about Rice's role at PlayStation:

"As Head of PlayStation Creators at Sony Interactive Entertainment, Greg is responsible for PlayStation's relationship with the global Indie and F2P gaming segment."