GTA 6 will be a “challenging disruption” as upcoming launch keeps publishers “up at night”

Grand Theft Auto 6 is already posed to be the biggest entertainment launch in history, according to highly-paid industry analysts. While Rockstar’s long-awaited follow-up will undoubtedly make a huge impact for publisher Take-Two Interactive, its release is a terrifying event for every other games publisher.

GTA 6 is going to be a challenge for publishers

In an interview with Game World Observer, KRAFTON advisor and Professor of Interactive Media at the University of Southern California, Mike Fischer, explained that the upcoming launch of GTA 6 is actively keeping him “up at night”.

“GTA 6 is going to be so big and so successful it may suck up all of the time and all of the money of all gamers,” the publishing advisor explained.

Fischer explained that he’s not alone in the worry that games outside of Grand Theft Auto’s genre will be massively hit by the launch of Rockstar’s game. The publishing advisor explained that the release of the new open-world game is an “unknown territory” due to the title’s “all-encompassing” nature.

“When GTA 6 ships, it will be a challenging disruption,” Fischer said. “Hopefully, there will be a larger audience as a result, but it’s literally an unknown territory, so we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Fischer explains that the release of Fallout 4 ended up distracting gamers from other AAA releases back in 2016. While that was an issue then, gamers are going to be far more rabid for the release of a Grand Theft Auto game over a decade in the making.

“I remember when Fallout 4 shipped and Microsoft was shipping their exclusive Tomb Raider game,” they said. “They’re different genres, but I think the blast radius from Fallout just ate up much of the demand for Tomb Raider, which, as a result, missed some of its potential. So whenever Rockstar ships GTA 6, there will never have been a game as big, as immersive, as incredible, as all-encompassing as [it].”

The new Grand Theft Auto game still doesn’t have a release date, and its PC release will happen sometime afterwards.