Day of the Devs lead curator Greg Rice believes ‘Grand Theft Auto VI’ (‘GTA VI’) will “bring a lot more people back into the ecosystem” of the gaming industry.
As the industry continues to battle financial struggles, employee layoffs and studio closures, Rice – who heads up the non-profit organisation, which helps showcase the talent of indie developers – has hope Rockstar Games’ highly-anticipated action-adventure title will help revive the industry as a whole.
Speaking with GamesRadar+, he said: “[‘GTA VI’ is] going to be the best, awesome, giant game for the year, for sure.
“I hear a lot of the opposite of devs, worried about it sucking all the space out. ‘I don’t want to launch during ‘GTA’ week or even month, because that’s all anyone’s gonna be playing.’
“But I think the industry is matured enough that there’s space for that and for other things as well. It’s gonna be a combination of, ‘there will be games that will be successful around ‘GTA’ time because they’re totally different,’ but it’ll also bring a lot more people back into the ecosystem.”
Rice – who has served as the head of PlayStation Creators at Sony Interactive Entertainment and vice president of business development at Double Fine – added ‘GTA VI’ will also bring a “big economic boost for the games industry” as it will likely increase sales of current-generation consoles, like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
He explained: “I’m sure there’s lots of gamers that [‘GTA VI’ will be] the only thing they play, [but] it’ll be the opportunity to get in on the new console generation and see what else is out there.
“So it’s definitely gonna be a big economic boost for the games industry, and will be a multiple billion dollar title, but I don’t think that it’s at competition with [indie games].”
