A university professor thinks Grand Theft Auto VI could cost the U.S. economy about $1 billion in lost productivity on launch day alone. That is a lot of money to lose because a bunch of guys in their twenties want to drive fake cars through a fake Miami. Who knew that skipping work to play a video game could become an economic event?
The Man With the Numbers
José García Montalvo teaches economics at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, and he is the one throwing around this figure. He calls it an academic projection rather than an official forecast, which is professor-speak for I did the math but do not sue me if it is wrong. He first floated the number in a July 2025 interview with Spanish broadcaster Cadena SER, and it has been bouncing around the internet ever since without a published paper attached. Montalvo figures roughly 1.5 million Americans will call in sick or just vanish on launch day.
His math pairs those absences with average U.S. worker output of about $70,000 a year and lands on a short-term productivity dip of around 2%. That 2% is a dip in output, not a head count. Those 1.5 million no-shows add up to less than 1% of the roughly 170 million people in the U.S. labor force, which still sounds like basically every guy who owns a gaming chair and an energy drink habit. Men aged 18 to 30 are the main culprits, according to Montalvo.
The technology sector takes the hardest hit, which makes sense because those are the people who can actually afford a console and a copy of the game without selling plasma. Even the ones who show up to work will be useless, Montalvo warns. They will be swapping spoilers by the coffee maker, sneaking clips on their phones and running on three hours of sleep instead of touching whatever spreadsheet is open on their second monitor. I have seen this movie before, and it always ends with someone getting caught watching a boss fight in a cubicle.
The Billion Dollar Shuffle
Now pay attention because this is where the story gets funny in a sad way. The $1 billion America supposedly loses is roughly the same size as what Take-Two Interactive expects to bring in. The publisher guided to more than $1 billion in operating cash flow for fiscal 2027, and GTA 6 is the engine pulling that train. That coincidence has inspired plenty of headlines claiming the money simply packs a bag and moves from your employer’s bank account to Take-Two’s.
Except that is not how it works. An employer does not write a check to Rockstar for the value of a missed Tuesday. The productivity loss and the sales revenue are two separate things happening at the same time. The framing is catchy, and it makes for a great headline. It is also the kind of economic shorthand that falls apart if you stare at it for more than 10 seconds.
The same goes for the idea that the windfall sails straight to Scotland. Rockstar North in Edinburgh leads development, but it shares the work with Rockstar studios around the world, and where the profits actually land depends on tax residency and internal accounting. That is a lot less fun than the headline version, where Britain gets the bragging rights and we get the hangover.
The Sales Numbers Get Silly
Market research firm Newzoo estimates GTA 6 could move somewhere between 37 million and 51 million copies in its opening week, depending on which sales curve you believe. The low end assumes an unusually front-loaded preorder run and lands around $3.3 billion and 37 million units. Newzoo’s preferred “proven sequel” model puts it at about $4.5 billion and roughly 51 million copies, and its top-end scenario stretches past $5 billion. Some outlets have mashed the low unit count together with the high revenue figure, which is the kind of math that gets you a C-minus in freshman econ.
Newzoo also estimated players spent around $260 million on digital preorders in the first week alone. That is impressive until you remember someone on social media claimed the game had already done $1 billion in preorders, and Newzoo flat-out called that absurd. Even the low-end 37 million is an insane number of people buying the same thing in seven days. That is most of Canada, which sits at nearly 42 million people, lining up for one game.
And none of them need a working disc drive, because the physical edition is just a download code in a box. Good luck to everyone’s Wi-Fi. These are loose projections, though, and everyone involved knows it. Too many variables exist between now and launch. Release day is Nov. 19 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, and HR departments should brace for a wave of booked vacation days and a suspicious number of sudden illnesses. Some guy named Brad will tell his boss he has a stomach bug and then stream for 14 hours straight. Brad is not fooling anyone.
A Prediction Worth Framing
My honest take is that this whole thing is overblown and I love it anyway. The professor’s math treats every one of those absences like a full day of $70,000-a-year output, and that is generous. Half of those 1.5 million absences will be people whose jobs could be done by a spreadsheet macro anyway. The economy will survive a 2% dip for a day.
What will not survive is my faith in humanity when I see a grown man cry because his preorder got delayed. The funniest part is how badly everyone wants the money to just change zip codes. One set of companies loses a day of labor, another company books a monster week, and somewhere an accountant in Edinburgh fills out a form about it. Those are two unrelated line items that happen to share a calendar, not a neat little pipe from your boss’s bank account to Rockstar‘s.
That is capitalism, baby. The whole circus kicks off Nov. 19, and the only people who should be nervous are the ones signing paychecks. Everyone else is just trying to figure out how to fake a cough convincingly.
Don't stop here
Every Score. Every Story. One Home.
Breaking sports, entertainment and news from across the Total Apex network, updated all day.
Get the Full Story →
