GTA VI Hype Goes Through the Roof: Rumors of Billion-Dollar Pre-Orders and Promises of Overnight Riches

The gaming community is expecting nothing short of a revolution from GTA VI — even though the game hasn't even come out yet. The first trailer has already made it into the Guinness Book of World Records for the number of views, and unconfirmed estimates suggest pre-orders raked in around one billion dollars in the first hour alone — roughly 21 billion crowns, supposedly covering half of the game's entire development budget.

Publisher Take-Two and developer Rockstar Games, however, have never officially confirmed these eye-popping figures — much like almost everything else currently being discussed online.

The world is being swept by a flood of first- and second-hand rumors about how the most anticipated gaming project of our time will actually work. Most of what's circulating is based on fragmentary information published by gaming sites and bloggers with real contacts inside Rockstar. The studio itself stays silent, letting the myth take on a life of its own.

According to Petr Poláček, co-founder of the gaming magazine Level, even industry professionals are finding it hard to keep a rational perspective these days. "It's already hard to keep your feet on the ground. Gamers and the entire gaming industry lost their minds months ago. Studios of every size are pushing their releases to next year specifically because of GTA," he told Seznam Zprávy.

Poláček added that he recently analyzed Steam data for two developers and concluded that game studios have nothing to fear from the new GTA. Quite the opposite — a major release like this draws a huge wave of new players to the platform, who then go on to buy other games too. "But what we're seeing now — let's be honest — is hysteria," the expert noted.

According to Ester Kožušníková, a marketer at Heureka.cz, GTA VI proves that in marketing, less can sometimes mean more. Rockstar Games has released just two trailers, yet millions of people have watched them. "When there's little content, the community ends up creating the rest of the marketing itself — frame-by-frame breakdowns, theories, memes," she explained, pointing out that several generations of players have grown up with the series, and the previous installment is one of the most commercially successful entertainment products in history.

One of the biggest rumors involves artificial intelligence: supposedly, in-game characters will no longer follow pre-written scripts but will react dynamically to the world and the player. KaBuM, Latin America's largest online retailer of electronics and games, even posted on its website that a character's in-game phone would show real-time viral videos and let players follow "Vice City influencers."

Experts, however, believe this is overblown. AI will almost certainly be used, but most likely for basic character behavior rather than fully autonomous action. "This isn't the first time someone has promised a living world where characters act autonomously. The outcome is always the same — there's still some scripted behavior behind it," Poláček explains.

Another buzzy claim comes from American gaming blogger HipHopGamer, who stated that GTA VI would let players become millionaires by creating in-game content with AI and then selling digital add-ons for real money. Rockstar has not officially confirmed this.

Only one fact has been confirmed: Take-Two acquired the FiveM platform, which allows players of the previous GTA installment (from 2013) to create content under the publisher's oversight. In theory, you can make money this way — but only under the company's supervision, and becoming a millionaire through it is more of a dream than a realistic prospect. Users with more than 32 modifications on the FiveM platform are already required to pay a subscription.

The hype around the game has long spread far beyond the gaming industry itself. The official release date has been pushed back several times by the publisher, while social media accounts using variations of the name "GTA VI" have racked up hundreds of thousands, even millions, of followers. One British couple reportedly agreed that the partner wouldn't disturb the other for ten days after the game's release.

American company Burger Motorsports announced a company-wide day off on the game's presumed release date, explaining that employees would be "in Vice City" anyway and unavailable for work.

The wave of anticipation has even rippled into politics. The White House's Instagram account posted a GTA-style graphic starring President Donald Trump, captioned "We saved America from GTA 6." In the Czech Republic, politicians from the ODS party styled themselves as in-game gangsters: party chairman Martin Kupka appeared as a biker, Jan Lipavský as a police officer, and Petr Fiala took on the role of a gangster.

All of this has produced a murky cocktail of rumors, whose truth only time — or Rockstar itself — can confirm. But why would the company bother, when staying silent is enough, and the world is already staging a spectacular show around the game on its own?

As marketing expert Bob Kartous points out, if it ever came out that the company deliberately fanned the hysteria for marketing purposes, that could be regarded as deceptive practice with legal consequences. But most likely, Rockstar is simply watching from the sidelines as the hype spreads — and has no intention of slowing it down, at least not while it's working in the company's favor.

Around Prague, based on reporting by seznamzpravy.cz