Take-Two CEO alludes to GTA 6 pricing by talking about in-game advertising

In a recent interview with The Game Business, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick discussed numerous topics in the gaming industry, including the recent rise in AI-powered tools for asset creation, in-game advertising, and his stance on a publisher/developer taking that route with a title.

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Take-Two Interactive is the publisher of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, and during the interview, Zelnick was asked for his thoughts on GTA fans who bought GTA 5 when it released, but now do not have enough time to play GTA 6 when it releases, as they are now 13 years older. Zelnick dismissed this as a concern, saying he believes many 17-year-olds will be playing GTA 6 when it releases, and that GTA 5 players who are now 13 years older can purchase GTA 6 without a parent present.

Additionally, Zelnick believes there won't be an impact on sales over teens thinking they need to play all of the GTA games before getting GTA 6. The Take-Two CEO said he doesn't think teens will go "If I didn't play (GTA) five or four or three or two or one, I'm not showing up." Regarding GTA 6, Zelnick was asked his thoughts about advertising being built into the game, such as players seeing branding from companies within the game world. Fans of GTA have suspected this could be a route Rockstar takes to earn more money from the release of GTA 6, but Zelnick quickly shut that idea down, while simultaneously alluding to pricing for GTA 6.

"Very difficult for me to believe that we would want to have interstitial advertising in a game that someone paid 70 or 80 bucks for would seem unfair," said Zelnick

While the comment does seem quite off the cuff, and GTA 6's price wasn't directly mentioned, the response of "paid 70 or 80 bucks" was a response to a question about GTA 6 having in-game advertising. So, perhaps Zelnick was thinking about the price of GTA 6 when he was answering this question?