If all the tie-ins and collaborations in Fortnite, not to mention the brands in NBA 2K26, haven’t clued you in, in-game advertising is a lucrative venture. While featuring real-life brands may have seemed impossible for the Grand Theft Auto franchise all those years ago, perhaps Take-Two Interactive has changed its tune with Grand Theft Auto 6.
After all, any brand would probably pay hundreds of millions for their inclusion, which should put a nice dent in that reportedly $2.11 billion (and counting) budget, further padding revenue. However, CEO Strauss Zelnick isn’t going down that road and wants to maintain GTA 6’s “pure” approach to brands, which is that they’re completely fictitious in-game.
“We need to be true to the underlying intellectual property, and we need to be true to our consumers,” Zelnick said at iicon (as reported by IGN). “And consumers have an intuitive sixth sense for something that’s real and something that’s not real. They can always figure it out.
“So in the case of GTA as a property, as you know, it’s a fictional world and everything in it is fictional. So we don’t have, for example, we’re not even at risk of doing brand partnerships because all the brands are made up. And I think that keeps us pure.”
This approach may seem at odds with NBA 2K, but not to Zelnick, because there are plenty of brands in the real-world NBA. “And as long as we present them in a natural way, in a way that’s consistent, the way the world would experience them in a basketball game, it’s great.” Granted, many fans might disagree, especially as the franchise has become more egregious with this (and microtransactions) over the years, but I digress.
Grand Theft Auto 6 will release on November 19th for Xbox Series X/S and PS5, and Zelnick again reassured that it would not face another delay. Launch marketing will begin this summer, but when the next trailer will be revealed remains unknown. Summer Game Fest’s showcase on June 5th sounds like a safe bet, so stay tuned for updates in the meantime.
