When Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2 launched, taking the day off to play was a forum joke and a quietly booked vacation day. For Grand Theft Auto VI, HR software companies and economists have begun tracking and publishing data on it, tracking the launch like it's the Super Bowl.
The numbers come from a Money report. HR software firm BambooHR found that time-off requests for November 19 were running 9 to 17 percent above a normal third Thursday in November, measured about ten weeks before the game's November 19 launch. More than 5.2 million copies had already been preordered by SensorTower's count, with the series sitting at nearly 475 million copies sold in all, which helps explain why Grand Theft Auto is a likely driver of the surge.
It's become so prevalent that the GTA fever is now drawing comparisons to the National Football League's biggest event of the year, the Super Bowl. The workforce firm UKG tracks what it calls Super Bowl Fever, the wave of absences the Monday after the game. It pegged this year's at 22.6 million people and about $5.2 billion in lost productivity. Money suggests GTA 6 could have its own version of that moment. The Wall Street Journal has warned of a "work blackout," and one estimate puts the productivity hit from launch-night sleep deprivation at around $5 billion the next day.
None of this existed the last time around. When Grand Theft Auto V arrived in 2013 and Red Dead Redemption 2 in 2018, the time-off story was anecdotal, fans skipping school, booking a vacation day or joking about a sick day on forums. No HR analytics firm was publishing national PTO-surge reports for a single game and no economist was modeling its productivity cost. GTA 6 may be the first game in video game history to receive this type of treatment often reserved for national events.
Ironically, Rockstar has partnered with the city of Miami to basically turn the entire place into a real-life version of Vice City, complete with a "Vice City Night" planned for the eve of the game's launch on November 18.
With that said, perhaps this wasn't surprising considering what we have tracked all along. We covered the estimate that GTA 6 could cost the US economy $1 billion in a single day, a business shutting down entirely so its staff can play, G Fuel cutting back its hours and even the Australian government explaining how to request leave. Money adds another, a California motorsports shop that closed on November 19 and called the launch an "unprecedented cultural event."
GTA 6 by the time-off numbers
GTA 6 by the time-off numbers | Figure |
|---|---|
Time-off requests for November 19 | 9 to 17 percent above a normal third Thursday, per BambooHR |
Preorders | More than 5.2 million, per SensorTower |
GTA series sales | Nearly 475 million, per Take-Two |
Super Bowl absences this year | 22.6 million, about $5.2 billion, per UKG |
Estimated day-after productivity hit | Around $5 billion |
Every figure is an estimate, but the game's scale has now reached Super Bowl territory.
While millions of players plan to take time off to enjoy GTA 6, Rockstar Games says it worked hard not to overwork the people who built it. Head of publishing Jennifer Kolbe has said the studio refused to make this game the way it made Red Dead Redemption 2, calling the result better than that brutal stretch but not perfect, as we covered in our look at the headcount and the anti-crunch push. Some developers have still reported long hours but the stated goal was to spare the team the worst of it. The people losing the most sleep over GTA 6 might end up being the fans, including professional and world-class athletes like Steven Adams and Lewis Hamilton.
GTA 6 has now crossed over from a game release into an economic event, one measured in PTO requests, productivity estimates and Super Bowl comparisons. Whether it truly costs the economy billions or just a very distracted Thursday, it is the first game the HR software industry is bracing for.