GTA 6 Sick Days Put Workers’ Output on the Ledger

An estimated 1.5 million workers could call out sick to play Grand Theft Auto VI, and economics professor José García Montalvo says their absences could cost the U.S. economy nearly $1 billion. The calculation uses workers’ average annual output—about $70,000 each—to estimate what a day away from work might mean. The game gets its release. Bosses get a number for the missing labor.

Workers Counted as Output

Montalvo’s estimate, reported as the video game industry prepares for the game’s release next month, rests on two figures: an estimated 1.5 million workers calling out sick and average annual output of about $70,000 per worker. The report puts the resulting estimate at nearly $1 billion. It doesn’t provide a breakdown by industry, name affected employers, or explain how it accounts for the difference between annual output and a single day away.

That gap matters. The headline figure measures possible absences by their effect on the economy, not through workers’ own accounts of why they want the day off. The report says many Americans plan to call out sick, but it doesn’t name them or describe their workplaces. What it does offer is a tidy economic frame: workers’ time appears as output, and a popular game becomes a cost calculation.

When Grand Theft Auto V came out in 2013, reports found that as many as 6% of workers aged 18 to 35 in cities such as Los Angeles and New York took the day off to play. That earlier figure provides a precedent for the current estimate, but the article doesn’t say how many workers actually intend to miss work for the new release. The 1.5 million figure is an estimate, not a count of confirmed absences.

A Release Delayed, a Price Set

Rockstar Games unveiled Grand Theft Auto VI in February 2022. The game’s original release date was 2025, but Rockstar delayed it multiple times. The long-awaited sequel to 2013’s Grand Theft Auto V follows the adventures of a criminal couple navigating the fictional state of Leonida, Rockstar said.

The game is available for preorder at $79.99. That price is concrete; the projected economic cost remains an estimate. The report names Rockstar Games and economics professor José García Montalvo, but includes no comment from workers, employers, or anyone planning to take the day off. It also reports no union campaign, workplace organizing, mutual aid effort, or other collective response. There’s no legislative fix or electoral proposal in the article either.

The Missing Voices

The source gives no detail about paid leave, sick-leave rules, or whether workers could take time off without penalty. It doesn’t say what individual workers would gain or lose by staying home, beyond the report’s broad estimate of economic output. Those omissions leave the workers at the center of the calculation largely unheard, while their value is measured by what their labor produces.

NewsNation's Zach Kaplan contributed to the report. The forecast may reach nearly $1 billion, but the article’s evidence remains an estimate built from projected absences and average annual output—not a tally of people who have actually called out. In this accounting, a day away from work becomes an economic alarm. The workers themselves don’t get quoted.