GTA 6 budget: the $1 billion to $1.5 billion analyst estimate
Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick will only say GTA 6 was expensive. The analyst estimate reported by IGN on May 6, 2026 puts the spend at $1 billion to $1.5 billion, four to six times GTA V's estimated budget.
: Adds Rockstar executive Jennifer Kolbe's pushback on a budget above $1.5 billion, and the 4,711 staff Bloomberg counts at the studio.
GTA 6's budget is estimated at $1 billion to $1.5 billion spent so far, per industry analysts cited by Business Insider in May 2026. On October 14, 2026, Rockstar head of publishing Jennifer Kolbe told Bloomberg that the rumor of a budget above $1.5 billion was wrong, without giving the real figure. GTA V was estimated at $265 million in 2013.
The only citable estimate of Grand Theft Auto VI’s budget is $1 billion to $1.5 billion spent so far. Business Insider built it from industry analyst estimates for an interview with Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, reported by IGN on May 6, 2026. Asked for the exact amount, Zelnick declined and said only that the game was expensive.
Rockstar addressed the top of that range on October 14, 2026. In Bloomberg’s long report on the making of the game, head of publishing Jennifer Kolbe called the rumor of a budget above $1.5 billion wrong, IGN reports. She did not give the actual amount. GameSpot reads the same passage as a rejection of the $1.5 billion figure itself. The difference matters: IGN’s fuller account leaves Business Insider’s range standing.
Take-Two does not publish the amount, and its accounts offer no way to rebuild it: the publisher does not break out net bookings (its operating revenue measure) game by game.
The bill grows with time and headcount. Some Rockstar Games employees have worked on GTA 6 for more than a decade, per Business Insider, and the studio now has 4,711 staff across 12 offices, up from 2,441 when Red Dead Redemption 2 shipped in 2018, according to Bloomberg via IGN. On May 17, 2026, on the Founders podcast, Zelnick added that the game is “about 18 months behind the original date.” IGN read that on May 18 as an internal target of spring 2025. The two public delays are laid out in our piece on the November 19 date.
How it compares
| Game | Amount | What the figure covers |
|---|---|---|
| GTA Vice City (2002) | $5M, plus $13.2M in marketing | development, per Wikipedia |
| GTA San Andreas (2004) | under $10M | development, per Wikipedia |
| GTA V (2013) | about $265M (over £170M) | development and marketing, analyst estimate |
| Concord | about $200M | initial development deal, per Kotaku |
| Bungie’s latest game | over $250M | budget reported by IGN |
| Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War | $700M | full life cycle, revealed in a court filing |
| GTA 6 | $1B to $1.5B | spent so far, analyst estimate |
The last three comparisons are the ones IGN set beside the estimate on May 6, 2026. Against GTA V’s $265 million, the range makes GTA 6 3.8 to 5.7 times as expensive, by GTA6 LIFE’s math. The scope differs, though: the GTA V figure includes marketing, and the GTA 6 estimate does not say whether it does.
The $2 billion, $3 billion and $5 billion figures
Amounts of $2 billion, $3 billion or $5 billion have circulated since March 2026. They are extrapolations from Take-Two’s consolidated research and development spending, which covers every game in the group, NBA 2K included. None rests on a figure the publisher released. The comparison with Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, a $1.5 billion skyscraper, traces back to a July 2025 Gulf News article, per IGN, and it is the claim Rockstar disputed to Bloomberg.
The number Take-Two does publish is what it expects back. On August 7, 2026, it held its fiscal 2027 net bookings forecast at $8.0 billion to $8.2 billion for the year ending March 31, 2027, and tied it to the November 19, 2026 launch on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. The same day, Zelnick defended the $79.99 price with inflation, as covered in our piece on why GTA 6 costs $80.
Keep reading
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