{"id":2077,"date":"2025-05-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-04T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scubadiscounters.com\/?p=2077"},"modified":"2025-05-05T03:07:39","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T03:07:39","slug":"gta-6-and-price-rises-are-going-to-destroy-gaming-forever-readers-feature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.scubadiscounters.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/04\/gta-6-and-price-rises-are-going-to-destroy-gaming-forever-readers-feature\/","title":{"rendered":"GTA 6 and price rises are going to destroy gaming forever \u2013 Reader\u2019s Feature"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\"GTA\t<\/div>
GTA 6 \u2013 will people have time for anything else? (Rockstar Games)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The $80 price rise for Xbox<\/a> games and GTA 6<\/a>\u2019s delay has a reader worrying that the video games<\/a> industry as we know it is coming to an end.<\/p>\n

I started writing this thinking I was only going to be complaining about Xbox\u2019s price rises<\/a>. And then I saw the news about GTA 6\u2019s delay<\/a>. It\u2019s been quite the week.<\/p>\n

A lot of people thought that GTA 6 must be delayed, given the complete lack of information, so that wasn\u2019t a surprise. Although it means we can now ignore anything Take-Two say in the future, given what they said about the release date<\/a>. If it was a few months I could understand that they were just trying to be optimistic, but more than a year? That\u2019s not the sort of delay that creeps up on you.<\/p>\n

Whether you\u2019re upset about it or not, the delay alone is going to have a big effect on gaming as a whole, but so too is the fact that Microsoft<\/a> is moving towards $80 as the cost of its games. And since they\u2019re too embarrassed to say what the price is in the UK, I\u2019m going to take it for granted that that means \u00a380 here.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t need me to tell you that \u00a380 is far too much. You can talk about how that compares to movies and gigs, and all that other stuff, and I\u2019d agree: in proportion video games are better value for money. But that\u2019s not the point. The point is that \u00a380 is such a huge chunk of money it rules out all but the biggest games for everyone, which is almost where we are now anyway.<\/p>\n

We constantly hear that nobody is buying new games, except Call Of Duty and EA Sports FC, and most people are sticking with the same game for years, just endlessly buying more cosmetics and other microtransaction junk. What they get out of that I couldn\u2019t begin to imagine but it\u2019s already nearly brought the games industry to its knees.<\/p>\n

Now we have Microsoft\u2019s annoucement, which is not only going to make impulse purchases a thing of the past but will put people off the idea of buying video games entirely and just file them away in their heads as something that is too expensive and not worth the trouble anymore. Unless it\u2019s free-to-play garbage.<\/p>\n

Of course, Microsoft won\u2019t be the last to announce a price rise. Nintendo already has and Sony is probably only delaying to try and make Xbox look bad. Other publishers will be champing at the bit, and I imagine that if Call Of Duty and EA Sports FC aren\u2019t \u00a380 this year they will be next year (EA may take their time, given EA Sports FC 25 was a bit of a dud).<\/p>\n

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Everyone has already accepted the fact that it\u2019s going to cost at least \u00a380 and <a href=\"https:\/\/metro.co.uk\/2025\/03\/06\/take-two-wants-charge-100-gta-6-claims-another-analyst-22676680\/\">probably \u00a3100 or more<\/a>. And other publishers will immediately leap on that too and think, \u2018If they can do it, why not us?\u2019<\/p>\n<p>My other concern with GTA 6, is that if most people are already only playing the same one or two games, what is going to happen when all the pent up desire of 13 years crashes to earth with GTA 6?<\/p>\n<p>The game\u2019s going to be the best-selling game ever, obviously, but if it\u2019s even half as involved as GTA 5 people are going to be playing it forever. It will become <em>the<\/em> game. It\u2019ll be so popular that there\u2019s literally no point releasing anything else because even if people can afford them (which they can\u2019t) they haven\u2019t got time to play them, because you\u2019ve got to get your two hours a day in on GTA 6.<\/p>\n<p>A video games industry crash has seemed on the horizon for years, but here it is finally coming into view. And this one isn\u2019t just going to be limited to the US.<\/p>\n<p>When I say destroy gaming I don\u2019t mean it literally. There\u2019ll still be gatcha rubbish on mobile, there\u2019ll still be some indie games (the lower budget ones at least), and Call Of Duty, EA Sports FC, Fortnite, GTA, and Minecraft will continue to be 90% of everything. But the actual games that you \u2013 as a person that was interested enough to visit this site and read this far into my feature \u2013 care about? They\u2019re done.<\/p>\n<p>No one can compete with GTA 6 \u2013 it\u2019s got to the point where it\u2019s too big and too expensive for anyone to even try \u2013 and no one wants anything else anyway. Well, I do. But I\u2019m afraid we\u2019re all going to have to admit that we\u2019re in the minority and when the games industry does implode, we\u2019ll be upset but most people won\u2019t even notice anything changed \u2013 because they only played one game anyway.<\/p>\n<p><strong>By reader Gaston<\/strong><\/p>\n<figure class=\"img-container shareable-item wp-caption\">\n<div class=\"img-wrap\">\n\t\t<img width=\"646\" height=\"363\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"article-image wp-image-23010743 lazyload\" alt=\"Xbox Series X console and controller with an arrow rising behind it\" loading=\"lazy\" data-src=\"http:\/\/www.scubadiscounters.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/SEC_249569327-0658.jpg\">\t<\/div><figcaption>As prices go up with the number of customers go down? (Microsoft)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><em>The reader\u2019s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><em>You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. Just contact us at <a href=\"mailto:gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk\">gamecentral@metro.co.uk<\/a> or use our <a href=\"https:\/\/metro.co.uk\/submit-stuff\/\">Submit Stuff page<\/a> and you won\u2019t need to send an email.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"metro-more-link\"><title>Arrow<\/title><span class=\"mor-link\" data-track-module=\"mor-link_article\">MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/metro.co.uk\/2025\/05\/03\/game-pass-led-abandon-ps5-readers-feature-23019105\/?ico=more_text_links\" class=\"\">How Game Pass led me to abandon my PS5 \u2013 Reader\u2019s Feature<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"metro-more-link\"><title>Arrow<\/title><span class=\"mor-link\" data-track-module=\"mor-link_article\">MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/metro.co.uk\/2025\/04\/27\/5-memorable-gaming-moments-no-one-ever-talks-readers-feature-22974929\/?ico=more_text_links\" class=\"\">5 memorable gaming moments that no one ever talks about \u2013 Reader\u2019s Feature<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"metro-more-link\"><title>Arrow<\/title><span class=\"mor-link\" data-track-module=\"mor-link_article\">MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/metro.co.uk\/2025\/04\/26\/6-gamecube-games-need-come-nintendo-switch-2-readers-feature-22975296\/?ico=more_text_links\" class=\"\">6 GameCube games that need to come to Nintendo Switch 2 – Reader’s Feature<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>GTA 6 \u2013 will people have time for anything else? (Rockstar Games) The $80 price rise for Xbox games and GTA 6\u2019s delay has a reader worrying that the video games industry as we know it is coming to an end. I started writing this thinking I was only going to be complaining about Xbox\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":522,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scubadiscounters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scubadiscounters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scubadiscounters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scubadiscounters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scubadiscounters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2077"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.scubadiscounters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2081,"href":"http:\/\/www.scubadiscounters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077\/revisions\/2081"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scubadiscounters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scubadiscounters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scubadiscounters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scubadiscounters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}