When Grand Theft Auto 6 launches on November 19, an estimated 1.5 million Americans are expected to call in sick, potentially draining $1 billion from the US economy in just one day.
This academic projection comes from José García Montalvo, an economics professor at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, who calculates a short-term productivity drop of about 2% based on those absences and an average US worker's annual output of $70,000.
The technology sector is anticipated to bear the brunt of this mass absenteeism, which will be largely driven by men aged 18 to 30 requiring time to play.
Even employees who do clock in are expected to drag down productivity through workplace distractions like launch-week chatter, watching streams, and fatigue from late-night gaming sessions.
This behavioral pattern echoes the 2013 release of Grand Theft Auto 5, when reports indicated up to 6% of workers aged 18 to 35 in major cities like New York and Los Angeles took launch day off.
Interestingly, the estimated $1 billion in lost American economic output perfectly mirrors the financial expectations of the game’s publisher, as Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick recently informed shareholders that the company expects over $1 billion in operating cash flow for the current fiscal year, primarily driven by GTA 6.