Over the past two years, the rumors about the open world action-adventure video game “Grand Theft Auto (GTA) 6” have been quite consistent as far as its speculated release date is concerned – the game is reportedly going to come out in 2018.
Since it took American game developer Rockstar Games all of five years to develop “GTA 5” from “GTA 4,” it was assumed that the company would also need five years to develop “GTA 6.”
“GTA 5” came out to the PlayStation 4, the Xbox One, and the PC in October 2013 so the general assumption was that “GTA 6” would likely come out late in 2018.
However, that specific release date rumor is now being challenged by reports that say that Rockstar Games has decided to defer the unveiling of “GTA 6” to 2020 or even beyond to give it time to finetune and perfect the development of the game.
There are also reports saying that Rockstar wanted the game to come out already capable of supporting VR or virtual reality technology which is why it needed all the time to make sure that the VR support comes out great.
But the real reason accordingly for the intentional delay in the release date of “GTA 6” is because “GTA Online” has been bringing tons of money to the developer ever since its release and continues to do so to this day.
In fact, reports have it that the online multiplayer game is funneling more than $700 million to the developer annually and it appears that the revenue stream is not slowing down anytime soon, details the iTech Post.
A suitable distraction
Because of the massive success of “GTA Online,” nobody would fault Rockstar for putting less priority on the development of “GTA 6.”
The online multiplayer game has become a suitable distraction for the upcoming sixth installment of the most successful video game franchise in history.
In addition, there is also the development of DLC for “GTA 5,” which received the massive “Biker” new content recently. There are reports saying that another expansion entitled “Tuners and Outlaws” will also be coming to “GTA 5” soon.
And reports have it that the development of such content takes so much of the time of the Rockstar Games development team so it is almost impossible that they start working already on “GTA 6” when it is very clear to them that they are still not done yet with the predecessor game, notes Game & Guide.
A very expensive game development
From the previous gameplay and character rumors about “GTA 6,” speculations have switched to the side of game developer Rockstar Games.
Rumors now have it that Rockstar Games is getting very skeptical about spending $265 million just to develop “GTA 6” as it might fell short of the remarkable sales performance of “GTA 5.”
“GTA 5” actually made a sales record of $800 million in just 24 hours from its release in October 2013 and the game has now raked in billions of dollars for Rockstar Games.
But it should be noted that these are mere rumors since it would be very difficult to leak a supposed budget of a video game development considering that work on the game is still in progress.
Critics also believe that assuming that the rumors have a good leg to stand on, $265 million would be peanuts for Rockstar Games since the “GTA” franchise has made more money for the company that its budget will almost be a non-issue.