Publishers ‘don’t want to be anywhere near’ Grand Theft Auto 6 when it launches: ‘It’s proving to be very stressful’

Grand Theft Auto 6 is still months away from launch, if not longer, but it’s already causing ripples in the games industry. Numerous major publishers are fretting over precisely when Rockstar’s latest crime epic will arrive, so they can schedule their games around its release and thus avoid the financial black hole they believe it will create.

These reports come from newly minted podcast The Game Business (via Eurogamer), hosted by former gamesindustry.biz editor Christopher Dring. Dring spoke to numerous individuals in prominent positions at various publishers, and while none of them would put their names on the record, they all shared similar anxieties about the impact Grand Theft Auto 6 might have on their businesses.

The central issue is the lack of a firm date for Grand Theft Auto 6’s launch, which is penciled in for the end of 2025 but is currently not confirmed. The problems this causes were highlighted by the “European head” of a triple-A publisher. “We don’t want to launch just before or just after the game,” they explained. “If it arrives in late October, that means you either have to launch early—which a lot of people seem to be doing with the recent glut of summer release dates—or go later, putting you up against the Black Friday sales, or alternatively, just get out of the year entirely”

Yet the executive also pointed out that the problem is not necessarily limited to 2025. “If we move out of 2025, what if Rockstar do too? Will we have to push our game up, or will we have to delay further? It’s proven to be very stressful.”

Running alongside this is a theme to what specifically the executives are worried about. Contrary to what you might expect, this isn’t necessarily the amount of money Grand Theft Auto 6 will make. Rather, it’s the amount of time it will occupy players for.” “Even without GTA, it’s immensely difficult to find free time for new games to shine. Time is the real scarcity for us, not money. It’s tough out there,” said one executive.

Another exec, from “one of the biggest publishers in the world” fretted about how much worse GTA 6 could make this: “Rockstar games always suck a lot of money, and more importantly, time out of the market. “We don’t want to be anywhere near that. We’re working up different plans for our title.”

These statements reflect a general sentiment around GTA 6’s launch that’s been present for a while. Industry analyst Ben Porter, from intelligence firm Newzoo, recently characterised the situation in a similar manner. “If you’re a game company who’s holding its breath waiting for GTA 6 to get out, and then it gets delayed by three, four, five, six months, what do you do?”

Yet it’s one thing making such statements from the outside looking in, quite another to hear them directly from senior executives at major publishing companies. There are a couple of indicators that might suggest how the launch will go down. Looking backward, pretty much every game Rockstar has released since Grand Theft Auto 4 has been pushed back from its initial release date by several months, so history would suggest the same will happen here.

In addition, Grand Theft Auto 6’s publisher Take-Two Interactive is also publishing Borderlands 4. Gearbox’s shooter is currently scheduled to land on September 23, which falls into the launch window of GTA 6. It seems highly unlikely that 2k would force its games to compete with one another, so that may also indicate a potential delay for Rockstar’s game. Yet whether GTA 6 is delayed or not, we’ll still be waiting to find out when the game will come to PC. Right now, it’s only confirmed for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.