Summary
- Multiple publishers have confirmed they are intentionally avoiding scheduling releases near Grand Theft Auto 6’s announced release window.
- This could result in a glut of games being released in the summer or a month after GTA 6.
- Rockstar is known to monopolise the time and money of players when it releases its games.
Grand Theft Auto 6 is predicted to be the biggest video game launch ever. It’s no surprise publishers are scrambling to avoid releasing during the same period as Rockstar’s upcoming mega-hit.
A report from Bloomberg previously revealed that publishers are avoiding scheduling releases during fall 2025 in fear of Grand Theft Auto 6’s arrival. A new report from The Game Business concurs with Bloomberg’s report, providing anonymous quotes reportedly from some of the industry’s biggest publishers.
Blast Zone
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“Rockstar Games always suck a lot of money and, more importantly, time out of the market,” says the head of one of the world’s biggest publishing companies. “We don’t want to be anywhere near that. We are working up multiple different plans for our titles.”
A studio boss compared GTA 6’s release to a cataclysmic event, saying “GTA 6 is basically a huge meteor and we will just stay clear of the blast zone. We will nudge our releases back or forward three weeks to avoid it. Of course, the problem is everyone is going to do the same. So three to four weeks before or after GTA 6, you’re going to get a load of games dropping content in what they believe will be the safe zone.”
Publishers are especially fearful about the possibility of Rockstar launching GTA 6 in late October or early November. These are prime commercial months as consumers gearing up for the holiday period begin to spend money. To avoid this possibility, you either have to launch in the summer or risk moving too close to the holidays.
This could result in a slew of triple-A games releasing the month before Grand Theft Auto 6. Electronic Arts chief executive officer Andrew Wilson has already expressed a desire to delay the release of (the unannounced) Battlefield 6 due to “some things happening in the year that may cause us to think differently about our launch timing.”
Rockstar is no stranger to delaying games, but there haven’t been any murmurings of a delay yet. As it stands, Grand Theft Auto 6 will launch later this year for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, with a PC release date arriving later.