GTA 6 Launch Losses Get Inflated as Report Spreads
The number being passed around is not a measured forecast but a recycled July 2025 interview whose additions, including the 1.5 million absentees and the 2 percent productivity drop, appear nowhere in the original report.
Reporting from 1 source: Automaton.
Grand Theft Auto VI arrives November 19 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Around that date, a July 2025 Cadena SER report citing economics professor Jose Garcia Montalvo is being resurfaced by outlets including International Business Times. The original cited scholar testimony and an unclear prediction of a 1 billion dollar U.S. loss on day one. Later versions attribute that figure to Montalvo and add claims of 1.5 million absent U.S. workers and a 2 percent productivity drop.
The original article ran in July 2025, when the game's planned date was still May 26, 2026. It gathered testimony from several scholars and covered absenteeism around a big release. The 1 billion dollar U.S. loss figure was in that piece with no clear basis, not attributed to Montalvo.
As November 19 nears, outlets including International Business Times have quoted parts of the testimony again. The figure is now written as Montalvo's own statement, and the 1.5 million absent workers and 2 percent productivity drop have been added alongside it. Montalvo's actual remarks concerned young men aged 18 to 30 and the technology industry, where remote work makes oversight harder.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.