Warhorse Studios co-founder Martin KlÃma used an interview with PC Gamer to make a case that most players don’t want to hear: video games, he argues, are too cheap, and he is hoping Grand Theft Auto VI’s pricing will give the rest of the industry room to charge more. The comments, reported on October 2, 2026 and picked up by Gizmodo, landed at a moment when Rockstar Games’ $79.99 standard edition and $99.99 Ultimate Edition for GTA VI, which is scheduled to launch November 19, 2026 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, are already the industry’s live test case for how far publishers can push the unit price of a game.
Klima’s remarks are notable because of who he is, not because the idea is new. Warhorse is the Czech studio behind Kingdom Come: Deliverance, the medieval RPG series better known to most fans through co-founder Daniel Vavra, its outspoken creative lead. Klima is the business side of that partnership, and in the PC Gamer interview he framed the $70-to-$80 pricing debate as an existential question for mid-size developers rather than a talking point for shareholders.
Don't miss new tech stories on Google
Add Tech Insider once in the Google app and our stories appear in your news suggestions.
What Martin Klima Actually Said About Game Prices
According to PC Gamer’s interview, Klima argued that the games industry has backed itself into a corner on pricing. Production costs for ambitious RPGs and open-world titles have climbed for more than a decade, he said, while the retail price of a new release has barely moved. His proposed fix is blunt: someone with enough market power has to go first.
“Rockstar and Take-Two are the only ones who can afford, or who can dare, to increase the price of games, which I think is long overdue and also necessary for this business to survive.”
Martin Klima, Warhorse Studios co-founder, via PC Gamer
Klima went further, saying the industry has avoided raising unit prices out of fear of a consumer backlash, even though he believes a hike would help studios across the board.
“The last thing you can do is to increase the unit price. That would help a lot, but everybody’s scared to death about it. Now, hopefully, GTA will blaze the trail, and it will allow us to increase the cost.”
Martin Klima, Warhorse Studios co-founder, via PC Gamer
That is an unusually candid statement from a studio executive who has no direct stake in Rockstar’s business. It also carries an odd twist: Klima told PC Gamer he is not personally a fan of the franchise he is rooting for commercially.
“The Grand Theft Auto series doesn’t appeal to me at all.”
Martin Klima, Warhorse Studios co-founder, via PC Gamer
Gizmodo’s write-up also noted that Klima pointed to his own history as a buyer: by his accounting, games cost less today in absolute dollars, and far less once inflation is factored in, than the titles he bought in the 1990s. That framing, rather than a defense of Rockstar specifically, is the core of his argument: prices have fallen in real terms for thirty years, and GTA VI is simply the first release with enough leverage to reverse that trend.
Who Is Martin Klima, and Why His Opinion Carries Weight
Warhorse Studios was founded in Prague and built its reputation on Kingdom Come: Deliverance, a historically grounded open-world RPG set in 15th-century Bohemia that has since grown into a two-game franchise: the original, published in 02/2018 and listed with 11+ million copies sold, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, published in 02/2025 with a Metacritic score of 89% and 6+ million copies sold, according to Warhorse’s own pages. Klima handles the studio’s business and operational side, while Vavra is the public face associated with the game’s writing and design. The PC Gamer interview marking the studio’s 15-year anniversary covered a wide range of topics, including demand for narrative-driven RPGs and the use of AI in development, with the pricing comments emerging as the single most widely reported thread.
Warhorse’s own back catalog illustrates the tension Klima is describing. Kingdom Come: Deliverance and its sequel are built on multi-year production cycles with licensed engines, voice work in multiple languages, and historical research teams, all while competing at retail price points close to those of games made on a fraction of the budget. Klima’s frustration, as relayed to PC Gamer, is less about Warhorse’s bottom line specifically and more about what he sees as a structural problem facing any studio trying to make an ambitious single-player game at a $60 or $70 price point in 2026.
GTA VI’s Pricing Is Already the Industry’s Live Experiment
Rockstar and Take-Two Interactive confirmed GTA VI’s pricing in late June 2026: a $79.99 standard edition and a $99.99 Ultimate Edition, as reported by LEVEL UP. Preorders for both editions opened on June 25, 2026, according to GTA BOOM’s coverage of the launch, and Rockstar reconfirmed the November 19 release date through the launch trailer on October 15, 2026. Our earlier coverage of the pre-order launch detailed how both tiers went live with no major retailer discounting, a signal that Rockstar expected demand to hold at full price regardless of the premium positioning.
That $79.99 figure already sits above the $69.99 ceiling most AAA publishers settled on after the last round of price increases in 2020, and GamesIndustry.biz put a sharper number on the gap, noting the standard edition landed $10 above the roughly $70 AAA norm when Rockstar’s pricing went live in June 2026. IGN’s October 2026 coverage described that same $80 standard price the same way, as a $10 increase over what a typical AAA release costs. It is not the $99.99-for-a-base-game scenario that analysts had floated at various points during GTA VI’s development, but it is still a meaningful jump, and Take-Two’s willingness to charge it is exactly what Klima is pointing to when he talks about “blazing a trail.”
| Edition | Price | Platforms | Notable Inclusions |
|---|---|---|---|
| GTA VI Standard Edition | $79.99 | PS5, Xbox Series X|S | Base game |
| GTA VI Ultimate Edition | $99.99 | PS5, Xbox Series X|S | Exclusive in-game stores and additional cosmetic content |
| Typical AAA title (2020-2025 era) | $69.99 | Cross-platform | Standard post-2020 baseline price |
| Nintendo Switch 2 flagship titles | $79.99-$89.99 | Switch 2 | Cited by analysts as a precedent for $80 pricing |
According to TweakTown’s reporting on Take-Two’s investor commentary, CEO Strauss Zelnick has defended the pricing decision publicly, saying Rockstar’s approach to splitting the release into a standard and premium tier was the right call given the scale of demand, and that the company could have chosen other pricing structures entirely. Zelnick has also said that early order data showed more buyers opting for the $99.99 Ultimate Edition than the $79.99 standard release, according to the same outlet’s coverage, a detail that undercuts the assumption that a higher price point automatically suppresses demand for a title with GTA VI’s brand strength.
Where GTA VI’s Pre-Orders and Launch Plans Stand
The best evidence on whether buyers accept the higher price is the pre-order data. Rockstar Report, in a piece published Oct 21, 2026, said GTA 6 has reached an estimated 6.45 million digital pre-orders worldwide, while a US comparison puts it 148% ahead of 2022’s Modern Warfare 2 at the same stage. That comparison, reported by GamesIndustry.biz, covers digital pre-orders in the United States only, so boxed purchases and sales outside the US are not included in the 148% figure. The same report says PlayStation holds 74% of estimated pre-orders.
Take-Two has said its more expensive edition is its top seller, which fits the idea that demand for the franchise is not very sensitive to price. There is a counterweight for publishers considering a copy of the strategy: according to a recent survey, 62% of the most engaged video game players no longer buy full-price releases, instead waiting for discounts in the weeks and months after games’ initial releases. A franchise with GTA VI’s pull can ignore that habit, while a mid-size RPG may not be able to.
On scheduling, Grand Theft Auto VI launches November 19, 2026 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, and no confirmed PC release date has been identified. Rockstar reconfirmed the date through the launch trailer on October 15, 2026, and no new delay has been reported. The earlier targets of fall 2025 and May 2026 were superseded by that date. For readers deciding whether to pre-order, that means the price, the platforms and the date are all settled on the reported record, and the open question is how sales perform once the game is actually in players’ hands.
A Short History of Console Game Price Hikes
Klima’s “games are too cheap” argument is not happening in a vacuum. The industry has moved its baseline price twice in the current console generation, and both moves map onto a Rockstar-adjacent or Nintendo-adjacent trigger point.
The first came in 2020, when a group of publishers including Take-Two raised the standard price of flagship console games from $59.99 to $69.99 as the PS5 and Xbox Series X launched. The second shift came with Nintendo’s Switch 2 library, where several flagship titles launched at $79.99, a price point Gizmodo reported was cited by Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter as evidence that a $99.99 GTA VI was more plausible than previously assumed. Rockstar ultimately landed between those two reference points, at $79.99 for the base game.
| Year | Price Shift | Trigger | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | $59.99 to $69.99 | PS5 and Xbox Series X launch; Take-Two among first movers | TweakTown |
| 2025 | Up to $79.99-$89.99 | Nintendo Switch 2 flagship titles | Gizmodo |
| 2026 | $79.99 / $99.99 tiers | GTA VI standard and Ultimate Editions confirmed | LEVEL UP, Take-Two |
| 2026 (ongoing debate) | Potential move to $79.99 baseline | Klima’s comments hoping other publishers follow GTA VI | PC Gamer, Gizmodo |
Why Only Rockstar and Take-Two Can Move First
Klima’s comment that “Rockstar and Take-Two are the only ones who can afford, or who can dare” to raise prices gets at a structural reality of the publishing business. A price increase carries real risk of consumer backlash, and most publishers do not have a franchise with enough built-in demand to absorb that risk. GTA VI had been in development for years, carried years of pent-up anticipation documented across our coverage of Rockstar North’s open-world systems, and arrived with pre-order volume strong enough that Take-Two could test a higher price without much fear of a sales collapse.
Smaller and mid-size studios, including Warhorse, do not have that luxury. If Kingdom Come: Deliverance III launched at $79.99 tomorrow, without a brand the size of GTA VI behind it, the studio would likely absorb a steeper backlash and possibly softer sales. That asymmetry is exactly why Klima is rooting for Rockstar from the outside rather than attempting the increase himself. Our comparison of CD Projekt’s stated pricing philosophy for Witcher 4 shows a similar pattern: even a studio with a major franchise is cautious about leading on price rather than following Rockstar’s lead.
Competitive Landscape: Who Else Might Follow
TweakTown’s reporting on analyst commentary points to a short list of franchises seen as the most likely to test $79.99 pricing if GTA VI’s launch holds up commercially: Call of Duty, NBA 2K, and EA Sports FC. All three are annualized sports or shooter franchises with reliable year-over-year sales bases, making them lower-risk candidates for a price test than a new IP or a smaller RPG.
Nintendo has effectively already run this experiment on its own hardware with Switch 2 titles priced at $79.99 and above, a point Gizmodo’s reporting described as having “dramatically increased” industry expectations that GTA VI could land at a premium price. The difference is that Nintendo controls a closed hardware ecosystem, while Call of Duty, NBA 2K, and EA Sports FC compete across PlayStation, Xbox, and PC against free-to-play alternatives, making a price increase for those franchises a riskier move than it was for either Nintendo or Rockstar.
What a Price Increase Would Mean for Studios Like Warhorse
If Klima’s hope plays out and $79.99 becomes the new default rather than a GTA VI-specific premium, the immediate effect would land hardest on development budgets for mid-size, narrative-heavy RPGs. Those are exactly the games Warhorse makes, and exactly the genre Klima argued in the PC Gamer interview is underserved relative to player demand. A higher baseline price gives studios more revenue per unit sold without needing to inflate player counts, which matters most for games that cannot compete with live-service titles on engagement metrics or microtransaction revenue.
It would also shift risk onto consumers rather than publishers. A $10 to $20 increase per title compounds quickly for players who buy multiple AAA games a year, and Klima’s own framing, that prices have fallen in real terms since the 1990s, does not address the fact that overall entertainment spending and subscription costs have also grown over that same period. Our coverage of the broader $13.9 billion market impact tied to GTA VI’s pricing goes into more detail on how Take-Two’s revenue projections already assume the premium tiers hold up through 2027.
Industry Reaction Has Been Mixed, Not Unanimous
Klima’s position is not universally shared even among executives who stand to benefit from higher prices. Zelnick himself has previously downplayed the idea of GTA VI launching at $99.99 across the board, according to TweakTown’s earlier reporting on his investor comments, instead describing the $70 to $80 range as the more realistic outcome for the base game. That more cautious public stance from Take-Two’s own CEO suggests the company sees the $79.99/$99.99 split as a calculated middle ground rather than a maximalist test of what players will tolerate.
Our earlier reporting on whether GTA VI’s $79.99 tag splits analysts found a similar divide: some see the price as justified given production costs that reportedly ran into the billions, while others argue Rockstar’s scale makes it a poor template for the rest of the industry, since few publishers can match the marketing reach or guaranteed install base that let Rockstar set a premium price with limited risk.
Historical Context: Games Have Gotten Cheaper in Real Terms
Klima’s underlying point, that games cost less today adjusted for inflation than they did decades ago, lines up with a pattern that has shown up repeatedly in industry pricing debates since the $59.99-to-$69.99 shift in 2020. A $49.99 or $59.99 price point from the Super Nintendo or PlayStation 2 era represents substantially more buying power than the same nominal figure today, even after the recent increases. The counterargument, raised repeatedly whenever a publisher floats a higher price, is that the audience for games has grown by orders of magnitude since the 1990s, meaning publishers now recoup development costs across a much larger buyer base than they could decades ago, even at a lower real price per unit.
That tension, rising production budgets against a larger but price-sensitive audience, is the real backdrop to Klima’s comments. It is also why his argument lands differently coming from a mid-size studio executive than it would from a Take-Two or EA investor call: Klima has less to gain financially from the specific outcome and is instead making a case about the sustainability of the business model for studios his size.
Market Impact: How Publishers Are Positioning Around GTA VI
Wall Street’s read on GTA VI pricing has shifted over the course of 2026. Early speculation, including the widely cited $100 base-game scenario floated by analysts in 2025, gave way to the more measured $79.99/$99.99 structure Rockstar ultimately settled on, and that structure has since been priced for global markets with notably uneven regional pricing: the Daily Star reported in October 2026 that the standard edition runs about âŽ80 (roughly $90) in Europe, ÂĨ9,800 (about $61) in Japan, and NZ$140 (about $79) in New Zealand. That outcome matters for how other publishers plan their own pricing for 2027 releases: a successful $79.99 launch from the industry’s biggest franchise, scheduled for November 19, 2026, would give EA, Activision, and 2K Games a tested reference point they did not have before.
Our comparison of GTA V and GTA VI’s pricing and scope shows just how large the gap in production value and marketing spend has grown between those two releases, a gap that makes it easier for Take-Two to justify the higher price internally, even if that justification does not automatically transfer to a smaller studio’s next release.
Predictions: What Happens Next in the Pricing Debate
- Expect at least one major 2027 sports or shooter franchise, most likely Call of Duty, NBA 2K, or EA Sports FC, to test a $79.99 standard edition if GTA VI’s sales hold through its first two quarters.
- Mid-size studios like Warhorse are unlikely to raise base prices on their own; any move will probably come packaged with a sequel announcement rather than a retroactive price change on existing titles.
- Take-Two will likely continue publicly framing the $79.99/$99.99 split as a calculated middle ground rather than a precedent for $99.99 base pricing industry-wide, given Zelnick’s past comments downplaying a flat $100 price tag.
- Expect continued analyst commentary comparing GTA VI’s pricing to Nintendo’s Switch 2 catalog, since both are now reference points publishers cite when discussing a move past $69.99.
- Consumer pushback will likely stay vocal but not translate into a meaningful sales dip for GTA VI specifically, given the pre-order data already favoring the pricier Ultimate Edition.
What This Means for Players
For players, the practical takeaway is that GTA VI’s $79.99/$99.99 pricing is not an isolated decision. It is being watched closely by every major publisher as a live test of what the market will bear, and executives like Klima are actively hoping it succeeds precisely because they want the cover to raise their own prices. That means the next wave of AAA pricing decisions, likely to surface around major 2027 releases, will probably reference GTA VI’s launch numbers after its November 19, 2026 release directly, whether sales held steady, whether the premium Ultimate Edition outsold the standard tier as Take-Two has claimed, and whether the backlash on social media translated into any measurable drop in day-one sales.
Players frustrated by the prospect of $79.99 becoming the new normal should note that the increase is not guaranteed to spread. Publishers without GTA VI’s brand strength and marketing budget carry more risk in a price hike, and several, including CD Projekt on Witcher 4, have so far publicly resisted following Rockstar’s lead.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who said video games are too cheap?
Martin Klima, co-founder of Warhorse Studios, the Czech developer behind Kingdom Come: Deliverance, made the comments in an interview with PC Gamer published around the studio’s 15th anniversary in early October 2026, and later covered by Gizmodo.
Is this Daniel Vavra’s comment, or Martin Klima’s?
The pricing comments came from Martin Klima, Warhorse’s co-founder on the business side. Daniel Vavra, the studio’s better-known creative lead, was referenced in some coverage for separate, unrelated remarks, but the quotes about game pricing and GTA VI are attributed to Klima specifically.
How much does GTA VI cost?
Rockstar and Take-Two confirmed GTA VI’s pricing in June 2026 at $79.99 for the standard edition and $99.99 for the Ultimate Edition, as reported by LEVEL UP and covered in our earlier breakdown of the pre-order launch. In the UK, the BBC reported in October 2026 that those same tiers translate to ÂĢ69.99 for the standard edition and ÂĢ89.99 for the Ultimate Edition.
Did GTA VI actually raise industry prices to $100?
No. Despite earlier speculation about a $99.99 base price, Rockstar ultimately priced GTA VI at $79.99 for the standard edition, with the $99.99 price reserved for the premium Ultimate Edition, ahead of its November 19, 2026 launch.
When did game prices last increase industry-wide?
The last broad increase came in 2020, when Take-Two and other major publishers raised the standard price of flagship console games from $59.99 to $69.99 around the launch of the PS5 and Xbox Series X, according to TweakTown’s reporting.
Which other franchises might raise prices next?
Analyst commentary reported by TweakTown names Call of Duty, NBA 2K, and EA Sports FC as the franchises most often cited as likely candidates to test $79.99 pricing if GTA VI’s higher-priced tiers continue to sell well.
Does Take-Two’s CEO agree with Klima’s position?
Strauss Zelnick has defended Rockstar’s pricing structure publicly but has previously downplayed the idea of a flat $99.99 base price across the industry, describing the $70-to-$80 range as the more realistic outcome, according to TweakTown’s coverage of his investor comments.
What is Kingdom Come: Deliverance, and why does its studio’s opinion matter here?
Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a historically grounded open-world RPG series developed by Warhorse Studios. The franchise’s production costs and genre, ambitious single-player RPGs, sit at the center of the pricing debate Klima raised, making Warhorse’s perspective relevant even though the studio has no financial stake in Rockstar’s GTA VI pricing decision.
