The blogger delves into Rockstar's financial statements, claiming that the development cost of "GTA6" has reached at least $2 billion.

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IT Home, March 31 news: Players who have been waiting for 《GTA6》 have turned into online detectives, studying Rockstar’s worldwide studio financial filing documents. Among the analyses, some believe that Rockstar North’s spending since 2019 may have exceeded $2.1 billion (IT Home note: at the current exchange rate, about RMB 14.53B).

YouTube vlogger Saukko505 released a video yesterday, providing a detailed breakdown of the publicly available financial documents filed by Rockstar Games UK Ltd. with the UK Companies House. This company actually corresponds to the Rockstar North studio in Edinburgh that leads the development of 《GTA6》.

The vlogger focused on Rockstar North’s employee salary data since 2019—i.e., the period when 《GTA6》 entered full-scale development—and based on that, roughly estimated that the development cost of 《GTA6》 may be between $3.0 billion and $5.0 billion (current exchange rate: about RMB 20.759–8B).

However, these figures are mainly inferred from employee salaries and operating expenditures, and have not been officially confirmed. The vlogger also clearly stated that he is not a professional accountant, but is making speculation based on the data.

Meanwhile, Reddit user Due-Vanilla-8924 analyzed financial statements as well, but provided more specific figures: the following are the specific employee wages and compensation expenditures:

March 31, 2019 – March 31, 2020: £191 million (current exchange rate: about RMB 20.76B)

March 31, 2020 – March 31, 2021: £223 million (current exchange rate: about RMB 34.6B)

March 31, 2021 – March 31, 2022: £346 million (current exchange rate: about RMB 1.75B)

March 31, 2022 – March 31, 2023: £316 million (current exchange rate: about RMB 2.05B)

March 31, 2023 – March 31, 2024: £315 million (current exchange rate: about RMB 3.17B)

March 31, 2024 – March 31, 2025: £282 million (current exchange rate: about RMB 2.9B)

In his summary, he said that the total spending above adds up to at least £2.1 billion, and that it is only the spending of Rockstar North studio. If you include other studios, then the development cost of 《GTA6》 is very likely heading toward the $3.0 billion mark (current exchange rate: about RMB 2.89B).

However, it’s worth noting that the analyses above are all based on inferences about Rockstar’s overall expenditures, and are not only specifically about 《GTA6》. Rockstar is still operating 《GTA Online》 and 《Red Dead Online》.