GTA 6 could cost the US $1 billion in sick days, but the numbers don't add up

According to a figure doing the rounds online this week, GTA 6's launch will cost the United States around $1 billion in a single day, as 1.5 million workers stay home to play. The number is credited to José García Montalvo, an economics professor at Barcelona's Pompeu Fabra University, and outlets such as 3DJuegos have picked it up. Pull on the thread, though, and the figure turns out to be older than it looks, and the sums aren't as neat as they seem. Here's where it comes from, what the economist actually said and why the 'GTA flu' is still very real.

What does the $1 billion estimate actually say?

The version going viral this week is simple: on 19 November, the day GTA 6 lands on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, around 1.5 million Americans won't turn up for work. If each worker produces an average of $70,000 a year, the loss would be in the region of $1 billion.

As 3DJuegos tells it, the profile of the no-shows is clear: men aged 18 to 30, with the tech sector hit hardest. And the damage wouldn't stop there, because the people who do make it into the office will have barely slept the night before.

Where does the figure really come from?

From an interview on Spanish radio station Cadena SER in July 2025, back when GTA 6 was still dated for May 2026 and had one more delay to go. As Infobae reported at the time, García Montalvo was talking about something much broader than launch day: how video games have changed young people's free time since the late 2000s.

His figures were these: video games would explain roughly half of the increase in leisure hours among young people, and a drop of 1.5% to 2% in hours worked. He was also the one who singled out men aged 18 to 30 with jobs they can do from home as the most likely to vanish. The $1 billion for day one appeared in that SER report; the 1.5 million workers, on the other hand, weren't in the interview and were added later, when the story jumped to the English-language press.

Will people actually skip work when GTA 6 comes out?

That part looks like a safe bet, even if nobody can put an exact dollar figure on it. Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick said as much, half-jokingly, on 28 April at the iicon conference in Las Vegas: "I think a lot of people are going to call in sick on November 19," as reported by NME.

And some companies have already done their homework. Burger Motorsports, a small Californian car parts maker, announced in June that it will shut down on 19 November because several employees had warned they'd be "unreachable or in Vice City", as Vandal reported. Business will resume, the company says, once the team has completed at least one mission and returned to reality.

The calendar helps too: 19 November is a Thursday, so taking Friday off for a long weekend practically arranges itself. And a week later comes Thanksgiving, the biggest holiday in the US.

Does the economy lose money, or does it just change hands?

That's the other half of the story. What offices don't produce ends up, in large part, in Take-Two's tills. Newzoo estimates GTA 6 could bring in up to $4.5 billion in its first week, according to 3DJuegos, and before launch it has already passed 6 million digital pre-orders. Next to those numbers, the $1 billion 'GTA flu', if it happens, is pocket change.

If you've already booked the day off, you'll want to know exactly what time you can start playing.