Will GTA 6 Cost America $1 Billion in Sick Days?

REPORTED. An economist estimates that 1.5 million Americans will skip work on Thursday, November 19 to play GTA 6, wiping about $1 billion off US output in a single day. The estimate, published by the International Business Times, is real. The math under it is one survey of 1,000 gamers, stretched a long way.

REPORTED. The number comes from José García Montalvo, an economics professor at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, whose analysis ran in the International Business Times. He estimates roughly 1.5 million US workers will miss work on launch day, a dip of about 2 percent in the country's output for that day. At an average output of roughly $70,000 per worker per year, one lost day across that many people lands at about $1 billion, per Dexerto. Men aged 18 to 30 are expected to make up most of the absent, and tech companies, with their younger workforces, are expected to feel it hardest.

REPORTED. Not from the government. The 1.5 million traces back to a survey released on October 20 by GameSquare, a gaming media company, covering 1,000 full-time employed Americans who play video games. In that survey, 10 percent said they plan to skip work on launch day, another 30 percent said they are considering taking time off, and among those considering it, 36 percent said they might call in sick. Another 42 percent expected the launch to make them less productive at work even if they show up, per ZME Science.

OUR TAKE. That is a small sample of gamers, surveyed by a company that profits from gaming hype, describing what they might do in a month. What people tell a survey and what they actually do on a Thursday morning are two different numbers, and the $1 billion headline spends the first one as if it were the second.

REPORTED. The strongest evidence is not a survey at all. BambooHR, which handles time-off requests for more than 30,000 US companies, found paid time off requests for Thursday, November 19 running 9 to 17 percent above the historical average for that Thursday. BambooHR told GameSpot the spike is consistent "at every checkpoint we can measure," while acknowledging it cannot definitively prove GTA 6 is the sole reason for the increase.

REPORTED. Employers are already planning around the day instead of pretending it will not happen. The Wall Street Journal reports that some workers have banked vacation days specifically for the launch and some companies built the date into their schedules, per NME. One California auto parts company, Burger Motorsports, even announced a tongue-in-cheek operational pause around launch after employees told them they would be off playing.

REPORTED. Because a day off is mostly moved, not deleted. Economists including Victor Matheson of the College of the Holy Cross point to the substitution effect: a worker who burns a vacation day on November 19 takes one fewer day off somewhere else, so the year's total days worked barely change, per Wall Street Next. There is also scale. Even taken at face value, $1 billion is about 1 percent of one day's US output and a rounding error against a year of GDP. And the money does not vanish. It moves: toward the game those workers stayed home to play, which sits at the center of the launch math in our sales projections breakdown.

OUR TAKE. The honest headline is not that America loses $1 billion. It is that November 19 will be the least productive Thursday of the year, on purpose, and everyone from HR departments to Take-Two's own CEO saw it coming months ago.

REPORTED. Yes, back in April. Speaking at the iicon conference in Las Vegas on April 28, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said, "I think a lot of people will be calling in sick on November 19," per NME. The series has form here: at GTA 5's 2013 launch, an IGN reader survey of 11,000 people found 46 percent had taken launch day off in advance and nearly 20 percent planned to call in sick.

OUR TAKE. Book it, do not fake it. A planned vacation day costs you the day and nothing else. A fake sick day on the one morning your boss has read a headline about costs a lot more when it goes wrong. Ask now, while four weeks of lead time still makes you look organized. Then make the day count: preload opens November 12, so the download is done before launch, and the game unlocks at midnight local time, which means your first session starts the night of November 18, not the morning of the 19th. Our release time breakdown covers every region's unlock.

Will GTA 6 really cost the US economy $1 billion?

REPORTED. That is economist José García Montalvo's estimate, built on 1.5 million expected absences at an average output of about $70,000 per worker. OUR TAKE. The $1 billion is a gross one-day figure, not a net loss, because most of those absences are vacation days moved from elsewhere in the year, so the true economic cost is far smaller than the headline.

How many people are taking November 19 off for GTA 6?

REPORTED. Nobody knows yet, and the two sources measure different things: a GameSquare survey of 1,000 employed gamers found 10 percent plan to skip work, while BambooHR's data across 30,000 companies shows real time-off requests for November 19 running 9 to 17 percent above normal. The BambooHR figure is the harder evidence, and even it cannot prove every request is for the game.

Did Take-Two's CEO really predict people would call in sick for GTA 6?

REPORTED. Yes. Strauss Zelnick said at the iicon conference in Las Vegas on April 28 that he thinks "a lot of people will be calling in sick on November 19," per NME. He said it months before the $1 billion estimate existed, as a joke about how big demand was going to be.

Is it better to book leave or call in sick on GTA 6 launch day?

OUR TAKE. Book the leave. November 19 is the most predictable absence of the year, employers have been briefed on it for months, and a fake sick day risks your job for a game you can start playing legally at midnight. A booked day also lets you preload on November 12 and be ready the night of November 18.

When does GTA 6 unlock on November 19?

CONFIRMED. GTA 6 unlocks at midnight local time on November 19 in each region, so US players start at midnight Eastern, which is 9 PM Pacific on November 18. Preload opens a week earlier, on November 12.

GTA 6 Release Time: When Every Region Unlocks

GTA 6 Sales Projections: The Launch Day Numbers

Every Confirmed GTA 6 Detail (Live Tracker)

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