Hype is something that is vital to most video game launches. Sure, you can come in with little to no hype, then get a bunch of great reviews and suddenly take off, as certain games from 2025 have gotten, but most times, developers work hard to create hype for their title so that they sell well on day one without issue. One such game that has no issue with hype is GTA VI, which is coming out next year. The anticipation over the game is so high that many people are already labeling it as the “biggest launch in video game history,” even though the game isn’t out yet! That’s how you know the hype is working, when people already KNOW it’s going to be a huge success, and the only question is “how much of a success.”
The problem, though, is that there is such a thing as “too much hype” and people taking things “way too far.” Take, for example, Devolver Digital co-founder Nigel Lowrie. In a chat with IGN, Lowrie was talking about the Rockstar Games title and praising it, and then, he said this:
“I mean, there are AAA games and then there’s AAAA games and I’d argue that Grand Theft Auto is potentially the AAAAA game; it’s just bigger than anything else both in the scope and scale of the game and the kind of cultural impact that it has and the attention it demands.”
…boy, doesn’t this sound familiar? For those who have a good memory and haven’t blocked out the pain that a certain company caused, Ubisoft once claimed that its then-upcoming pirate title was the world’s first “AAAA” title because of all the content that you could do in it and the quality that it would bring.
Obviously, that was a lie, as the game was mediocre at best, didn’t have the quality of past Ubisoft titles, and flopped so hard that even the guy who made that claim wouldn’t talk about sales of the title.
Now, obviously, GTA VI is a different animal, obviously. Rockstar Games is legendary for the fact that it doesn’t just do quality; it won’t release anything until it’s sure that the game is up to the standards that they have. However, that doesn’t mean we can just label it a “AAAAA” title, especially when the last game in the franchise was honestly really big, especially with its online portion, and wasn’t given this label. So, let’s just calm down a bit, okay?
