While most of the games industry runs from Grand Theft Auto VI, Activision is talking up the opposite view. The company's chief marketing officer, Tyler Bahl, says GTA 6 will be good for Call of Duty, not a threat, because it will drag players back to their consoles and put more eyeballs on gaming overall. It is a confident message. It also sits awkwardly next to the fact that Call of Duty already moved out of GTA 6's way.
Bahl made the comments to The Game Business, which had suggested GTA 6 and the upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake could be gaming's "Barbenheimer". Bahl waved that off. "No offense to Zelda," he said, "but [GTA and COD] are the two biggest games of the year." His point is that GTA 6, a game eight years in the making, grows the whole pie. "More people taking the dust off their Xbox or PlayStation and playing again, is going to be more eyeballs for us overall," he said. He also argued that Call of Duty wins on something GTA 6 does not directly replace, community. "What makes Call of Duty last the test of time is the community and social experience," he said, pointing to research that players value time with friends over the gunplay itself. "If there's more press around it, that's going to be good for everybody, not just us."
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On a similar note, an ex-Rockstar developer recently warned the industry against hiding from GTA 6, arguing the smarter play is to ride the wave of attention rather than duck it. Bahl's case follows the same reasoning. GTA 6 is the rare release that pulls people who have not touched a console in years back into the ecosystem. Once they are there, some will browse the store, reinstall old games and spend. GTA 6 is also a single-player crime story at launch, while Call of Duty lives on competitive multiplayer, so the two are not fighting over the exact same hours in the way two shooters would.
The optimism has one big hole though. If GTA 6 were purely good for Call of Duty, Activision would not have gotten out of its path. This year's Call of Duty, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, arrives in late October, weeks ahead of GTA 6.
We have written about how Call of Duty talks tough while quietly stepping aside and to its defense, it is not alone. Nearly every other publisher cleared out of November rather than test the rising-tide theory in real life. The revealed preference of the whole industry is avoidance.
Activision's optimism versus the reality check
Tyler Bahl's case | The skeptical read |
|---|---|
GTA 6 brings lapsed players back to their consoles | Those players spend their time and money on GTA 6 first |
More eyeballs and press lift the whole industry | Nearly every other publisher still cleared out of November |
Call of Duty wins on community and social play, not gunplay | GTA 6's own online mode arrives in 2027 to compete for that |
GTA 6 is good for everybody, not just us | Call of Duty still moved its release out of GTA 6's way |
Confident words from Activision, even as Call of Duty quietly stepped aside.
There are two more reasons to temper the optimism. Attention and money are not infinite. A player who buys GTA 6 for $70 or $80 and sinks a hundred hours into Vice City has less of both to give Call of Duty in the same window. The community argument cuts both ways too. GTA 6's own online mode is expected in 2027, built on Rockstar Games' hugely popular multiplayer sandbox, which could chase the exact social and competitive time Call of Duty depends on. Bahl is right that the two games are not identical today but they may look a lot more alike once GTA 6's online mode arrives.
So who is right? Probably both, in different ways. Bahl is correct that GTA 6 will light up consoles and pull lapsed players back. Some of that energy will reach Call of Duty. He is also selling. The clearest evidence of what Activision truly expects is the schedule and the company put Modern Warfare 4 out ahead of the storm rather than into it.
Our take? GTA 6 is both a rising tide and a wrecking ball. Activision is trying to catch the tide while standing clear of the wall. We will see which force wins when GTA 6 arrives on November 19.