GTA 6 fans are once again in a frenzy—as they have been repeatedly during the long wait for Trailer 3—following online reports that Best Buy may have leaked the game's pre-order date. We've been down this road before, many times. Some fans even believe in a Trailer 3 release date prediction based on someone charting planetary positions for every Rockstar Games trailer since 2007. Now, there's a rumor about the GTA 6 pre-order date. For any other game, this wouldn't be massive news, nor would a leak generate extreme interest. But this is GTA 6. It's arguably the most anticipated game ever and seems poised to become the biggest entertainment launch in history. When pre-orders go live, websites will likely crash. Enter YouTuber Frogboyx1gaming, who, during a livestream, appeared to receive an email from Best Buy to his affiliate account, signaling a pre-order campaign for GTA 6 running from May 18-21. If true, that would mean pre-orders open on May 18, and if so, Trailer 3 can't be far off—maybe even today! There's already intense debate over the email's legitimacy. Frogboyx1gaming seemed surprised to receive it during the stream and has shared images to back up his claim. Discussions range from the email's description of 'GTA 6' instead of 'Grand Theft Auto VI' to whether it would be sent at all. IGN has asked Best Buy for comment. True or not, this is another sign of the intense scrutiny on GTA 6, Rockstar Games, and anything remotely related to the game's development. Fans have even tracked how busy coffee shops near Rockstar North's office in Scotland are—a bizarre video game version of the Pentagon pizza theory. None of this obsession is particularly healthy (Trailer 3 will eventually release!), but it's fueled by the huge gap between trailer drops and the lack of basic gameplay info. It's been over a year since Trailer 2. Trailer 1 came out three years ago in 2023. The drip-feed of GTA 6 news has stretched fans to the breaking point. Strauss Zelnick, head of Rockstar parent Take-Two, has said marketing will ramp up in the summer ahead of the planned November release. So more is coming. When? We'll have to wait and see. Earlier this month, Business Insider reported that Take-Two has spent an estimated $1-1.5 billion on GTA 6 so far. Zelnick wouldn't confirm the exact figure but admitted 'it was expensive.' To put that in context, most triple-A budgets that make headlines are in the hundreds of millions. Bungie's recent extraction shooter reportedly had a budget over $250 million. Concord's initial development deal was around $200 million. In 2023, documents from the Xbox FTC case revealed The Last of Us: Part II and Horizon Forbidden West each cost over $200 million. Last year, court documents confirmed Activision spent $700 million on Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War over its lifecycle. GTA 6 clearly surpasses them all. Given expectations that GTA 6 will be the biggest entertainment launch ever, the astronomical development costs are no surprise. The game has been in the works for a while; according to Business Insider, some Rockstar staff have worked on it for over a decade. In a recent Bloomberg interview, Zelnick said development costs have risen but Take-Two tries to give its teams 'unlimited financial, creative human resources and then they aim to deliver perfection.' Any talk about GTA 6's costs naturally leads to pricing. Bank of America recently recommended selling GTA 6 for $80, $10 above the norm. Analyst opinions vary—some say stick with $70, others say it could justify $100. While GTA 6 will undoubtedly set sales records, questions remain about how well it can perform amid one of the toughest economies in recent memory.
