Why Rockstar Games will never rush Grand Theft Auto 6

In an ideal world, video game developers should all get the necessary time, money, and freedom to make a game they want - crunch culture "benefits" be damned. Rockstar isn't lucky Take-Two doesn't pressure it. It's earned it. Besides, it's already in enormous amounts of pressure as it is, presumably from itself and from fans. The last thing Rockstar needs are stock holders and corporate executives breathing down its neck, which thankfully likely hasn't happened yet. Otherwise, we'd have heard about it already.

Several games in recent years have suffered mightily because those at the top felt like the developers were taking very long to make them.

Rockstar Games has always served as one of the standard bearers of the video game industry. The award-winning but very controversial studio has released plenty of masterpieces over the years. Unlike others, Rockstar just can't seem to stop getting better. Any game with the "R" logo in it will sell at neck-breaking speeds. Case in point, Grand Theft Auto V was the fastest-selling entertainment product ever after grossing over a billion in three days in 2013, which is two days faster than the record set by Avengers: Endgame in 2019 as the fastest movie to gross at least a billion at the global box office. Today, GTA V is the most successful entertainment product of all time, outgrossing any individual movie, book, or music album.

More than that, every GTA, especially starting from GTA III all the way through GTA V, have set the bar for its innovative gameplay, strong narrative, and massive open worlds.

Rockstar knows very well that it can't afford to cut corners, but it can afford to ask fans to extend their patience more as they wait for GTA 6.

After being in production for pretty much a decade, what's a year or two more if it means Rockstar gives us the best and most polished version of what could potentially be the best, most expensive and most lucrative game of all time?