October 23, 2026
Will GTA 6 Really Cost the US Economy $1 Billion in One Day?
A widely shared estimate says 1.5 million Americans will skip work for the GTA 6 launch, costing about $1 billion. Economists doubt the number and say the time is mostly made up later.
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With four weeks to go, one GTA 6 headline has spread far beyond gaming sites: the launch on November 19 could cost the US economy about $1 billion in a single day, because so many people will call in sick to play.
It's a fun number, but it is an estimate, not a study, so we mark it as a rumor.
Where does the $1 billion figure come from?
The claim is credited to José García Montalvo, an economics professor at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. As reported, it rests on two assumptions:
- about 1.5 million US workers taking the day off, most of them aged 18 to 30 and many in tech jobs;
- about $70,000 of output per worker per year.
Together, that is said to mean a short-term drop in productivity of around 2% on launch day.
Why economists doubt it
Fortune looked into the claim this week and found several problems:
- There's no published study. The estimate has been passed around online for most of the past year, and the 1.5 million figure doesn't appear to come with any published method. Montalvo didn't reply to Fortune's request for comment.
- The maths is unclear. Spread 1.5 million workers' yearly output over a working year and one day comes closer to $400 to $500 million than $1 billion.
- Lost time gets made up. Victor Matheson, an economist at the College of the Holy Cross who studies big events, says days lost to things like the Super Bowl or new console launches are mostly moved, not lost. People take that day off instead of another one, or catch up on work in the evening.
- It's tiny anyway. Even $1 billion is a very small slice of the US economy, and Matheson points out that the fun people have playing doesn't show up in GDP at all.
Are people really taking the day off?
Some of them, yes. HR software company BambooHR reported that time-off requests for November 19 are running 9% to 17% above a normal third Thursday in November. Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick also said back in April that he expected plenty of sick days on launch day.
If you're planning yours, the digital preload opens on November 12, so the game can be ready the moment it unlocks. Our launch day checklist covers the rest.
