Employees taking time off to play GTA 6 are expected to cost UK businesses around £12 million. Data from BrightHR, an employee absence tracking platform, shows that approximately 83,000 UK employees explicitly mentioned the game when requesting leave between November and December.
GTA 6 is scheduled for release on November 19. Estimates suggest that around 5% of leave requests on that day are related to the game, resulting in approximately £3.14 million in losses for businesses.
Among local leave requests, mentions of the game's release date were twice as common as those for honeymoons. Some players have even saved up a year's worth of vacation days to take two consecutive weeks off to complete the game.
Publisher Take-Two stated that GTA 6 has already reached 7.7 million pre-orders and is expected to be one of the biggest game launches ever. The figures of £12 million in losses, 83,000 employees taking leave, and 7.7 million pre-orders are all estimates or projections, not final confirmed results.