WARDOGS head says GTA 6 missed a chance to change pricing policy in the gaming industry

Bulkhead CEO and WARDOGS Executive Producer Joe Brammer spoke up about game pricing in the industry, stating that modern titles are too cheap compared to actual development costs. The developer shared his thoughts in response to a recent comment from Double Fine head Tim Schafer, who admitted he doesn't fully understand the economics of the game industry or the logic behind studios laying off employees only to hire again once they realize they need bigger teams for new games.

Brammer used GTA 6 as an example. According to him, Rockstar Games had a perfect opportunity to set a new price bar for games but didn't take it.

GTA 6 had a chance to raise the bar and they didn't do it, so we'll keep going round.

Games are too cheap, dev costs are too high.

Brammer then moved on to discuss the pricing of his own game. He compared the cost of WARDOGS to everyday expenses, noting that a train ticket one way cost him £30, while his game costs £36.99. According to the developer, the industry is simply avoiding an honest conversation about what it actually costs to make games.

Let's not pretend we don't know why, guys like Tim should stand up and say "games need to cost more", not act like we don't know.

WARDOGS is a tactical all-out warfare FPS developed by Bulkhead alongside Team17. The game has become one of the biggest hits on Steam, selling over 2 million copies in its first week while still in early access. WARDOGS peaked at over 400,000 players, and around 250,000 people are playing concurrently at the time of writing.

The console release on PlayStation and Xbox isn't planned until 2028. GTA VI launches November 19 on PS5 and Xbox Series X.