GTA 6 Sick Days Could Cost U.S. Economy Nearly $1B

Nearly $1 billion in lost output: that’s the price tag economics professor José García Montalvo put on Grand Theft Auto VI’s release if American workers follow through on plans to call out sick and play the game.

Montalvo’s math is straightforward. He assumed about 1 1/2 million workers would phone in sick and used average annual output of roughly $70,000 per worker. The report said that adds up to a hit approaching a billion dollars.

The Cost to Employers

The bill won’t land on Washington. It’ll land on businesses, which must cover shifts, push back deadlines, or absorb lost production when employees don’t show up. Many Americans say they plan to call out sick as the video game industry prepares for the game’s release next month, according to the report.

That intent matters. Nobody’s guessing about a hypothetical here. People are telling pollsters and reporters, more or less openly, that they intend to misuse sick leave to play a video game.

A Familiar Pattern

There’s precedent. 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. Thirteen years have passed since that release, and the habit hasn’t gone away. If anything, anticipation has only grown.

Rockstar Games unveiled Grand Theft Auto VI in February 2022, more than four years ago. Fans have waited a long time. The game was originally slated for release in 2025, but Rockstar has delayed it multiple times; the sequel to the 2013 hit has stretched its audience’s patience.

The Product Itself

Rockstar said the game is available for preorder at $79.99. It follows the adventures of a criminal couple navigating the fictional state of Leonida. Buyers are plainly willing to pay a premium price for a product they’ve waited years to get their hands on, and a good share seem ready to rearrange their work lives around it.

That’s the market at work. Demand is intense, the price is high, and consumers are voting with their wallets and calendars. Rockstar delivered something people want badly enough to skip work for.

What Employers Can Do

The report offers no data on how companies plan to respond, and it doesn’t claim the full $1 billion figure is certain. Montalvo’s number is an estimate built on stated assumptions, not a measured loss. Still, the underlying behavior is documented. A slice of the young workforce did exactly this in 2013, and many say they’ll do it again.

For managers, the practical question is simple. Do they approve vacation requests in advance, schedule around the launch, or accept the absences as the cost of doing business? Employers who know their own operations—not regulators—are best placed to make those decisions.

NewsNation’s Zach Kaplan contributed to the report.

Why This Matters:

The estimate, about $1 billion in lost output tied to a single entertainment release, shows how individual choices add up across an economy. Sick leave is a benefit extended on trust. When workers treat it as a free day off, employers pay the cost, and colleagues eventually pick up the slack. The 2013 precedent, when as many as 6% of workers aged 18 to 35 in major cities skipped work, suggests this isn’t a one-off. Businesses are better positioned than any government agency to manage it through clear attendance policies and realistic planning. The episode also reflects a healthy consumer market, where a $79.99 product can command this level of devotion. The open question is whether workers will honor the trust that leave policies depend on.