Kingdom Come Dev Hopes GTA 6 Paves Way For Industry-Wide Price Hikes

The co-founder of Warhorse Studios, the team behind Kingdom Come: Deliverance, is rooting for Grand Theft Auto 6 to succeed for a very specific reason: he wants it to make expensive games the new normal. According to PC Gamer, Martin Klima said the industry is "scared to death" of raising base game prices, but Rockstar and Take-Two might be brave enough to do it.

Klima told the outlet that game development costs keep soaring, but audience growth has stalled and digital store profits are already maxed out. He bluntly summarized the situation by saying, "We destroyed retail, and we took all their money." The only remaining solution, in his view, is to charge more per copy.

"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," Klima said per PC Gamer. "Now, hopefully, GTA will blaze the trail, and it will allow us to increase the cost."

Kotaku also covered the interview, noting Klima believes Rockstar and Take-Two are the only companies "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."

Interestingly, Klima admitted he doesn't get the appeal of the Grand Theft Auto series and won't be playing GTA 6 unless forced. He said its popularity "beats me." Despite that, he wishes the game luck, hoping its confirmed $80 standard edition price point will give other publishers the confidence to follow suit.