Take-Two Interactive has announced that Grand Theft Auto VI will cost $79.99. Pre-orders start June 25, and the game ships on November 19, according to Reuters.

This price matters because it is the highest Take-Two has charged for a console game. For the past decade, $69.99 was the standard price for big, new games. Now Take-Two is raising that to $79.99. That might not sound like much, but it could change how much all video games cost going forward.

Grand Theft Auto V came out in 2013 and has made enormous amounts of money for Take-Two over more than ten years. Because people still play and buy content for that game, the company knows that GTA VI has an audience ready to buy it. If any game can succeed at the higher price, it is probably this one.

The reason for the price increase is simple: making video games now costs far more than it did before. Big games like GTA VI require hundreds of millions of dollars to develop. That money goes toward the team that makes the game, the computers needed to create realistic graphics and characters, and the servers that keep the game running online. Prices have not kept up with those rising costs for several years.

Take-Two announced the price one day before pre-orders opened. This timing was intentional. By telling customers the price before they could place an order, the company avoided surprising people at checkout. It also sent a clear message: this is the price, and it is not changing.

What happens next matters. Other big game makers like EA and Ubisoft will be watching to see how well GTA VI sells at $79.99. If it sells very well, they may raise their own prices too. If customers push back against the price, other publishers might decide to stay at $69.99 instead.

November is the busiest time of year for game sales, so timing the release then is a smart move. People are buying games and gaming systems as holiday gifts, which means strong demand for a game like GTA VI.

The real question is what happens to future games. When companies change prices, those changes tend to stick around. The jump from $59.99 to $69.99 took years and only happened after Sony and Microsoft (the makers of PlayStation and Xbox) moved first. This time, a game company is trying to raise the price without waiting for those big companies to lead. If GTA VI sells well, we may see most new games at the $80 price point. If it does not, companies may hold off on raising prices.