A millionaire swears GTA 6 will save you $5,000, and pulls out a calculator to prove it

According to Mark Tilbury, the British entrepreneur who explains money to 9 million YouTube subscribers, buying GTA 6 could save you $5,000: it works out at 50 cents per hour of play and replaces 50 nights out. He makes the case in a 30-second video, calculator in hand, that has gone viral on X just three weeks before launch. Here's his maths step by step, where it cheats, and what the game really costs.

Who is Mark Tilbury and what is he saying about GTA 6?

Mark Tilbury is an entrepreneur from Kent, England, who made his money with a remote-control toy shop and an electronics company and now makes a living explaining investing and compound interest on social media. His YouTube channel has more than 9.3 million subscribers, and the format never changes: a white-haired man in a blue shirt proving with a calculator that you're throwing your money away.

This time, the product is GTA 6. Tilbury walks into an electronics store, picks up a PS5 box with the 19 November date on it and drops the line that's been doing the rounds on X: "Buying GTA 6 could save you $5,000."

How does he get to $5,000?

In five calculator steps. Here's his maths, exactly as he does it in the video:

• The game costs $99.99. That's the price of the Ultimate Edition, not the standard one.
• If it takes you 80 hours to finish, that's $1.25 an hour.
• Add side missions and exploring the map and it drops to 50 cents an hour. That's around 200 hours of play.
• If you play 4 hours a night, you've got 50 nights of entertainment.
• A night out easily costs you $100. Fifty nights at home instead of at the pub: $5,000 you don't spend.

He signs off with the GTA 6 box in one hand and the calculator showing 5000 in the other. If you've ever bought a round in a London pub, $100 a night won't sound like much of a stretch.

Where do the numbers cheat?

In a few places, and Tilbury knows it. His argument only works if you were genuinely going to go out on those 50 nights and GTA 6 keeps you on the sofa instead: if you were staying in anyway, the game is just another expense, not a saving. And even then, the real saving would be $4,900, because you still have to pay for the game.

The hours are his too. Rockstar hasn't said how long GTA 6's story is, so the 80-hour campaign and 200 hours with everything are Tilbury's estimate, not an official figure. Same goes for the pace: four hours a night for 50 nights in a row is a plan not everyone can afford, although plenty of people will think it's not enough.

And then there's the flip side. According to one economist, GTA 6 launch sick days could cost the US economy $1 billion. What you save at the bar, your boss might end up losing.

How much does GTA 6 actually cost?

Less than Tilbury's calculator says. Rockstar set the standard edition at $79.99 and the Ultimate Edition at $99.99, as Windows Central reported. In Europe it's €79.99 and €99.99, and the boxed version comes with a download code instead of a disc.

With the standard edition, his own maths gets better: $1 an hour if you finish it in 80 hours and around 40 cents if you hit 200. And if you're one of the more than 6 million people who've already pre-ordered it digitally, that money is already spent: all that's left is to get your money's worth.

Is he serious or is it a joke?

A bit of both. The tone is classic Tilbury, half lesson, half wind-up, and the X account that made it go viral posted it tongue in cheek: "Bro did the math on GTA 6." But the reasoning underneath is the one everyone uses to justify an expensive game: cost per hour of fun. With GTA V, still being played more than a decade later, that maths came out at pennies for millions of people.

GTA 6 launches on 19 November on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. After that, you can do your own sums.