GTA VI Release to Hit US Economy. Professor Calculates Damage from Employee Absences

The release of GTA VI could cost the American economy $1 billion due to mass employee absences on November 19.

According to calculations by Jose Montalvo, Professor of Economics at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, American companies could lose up to a billion dollars due to employees taking a day off, leaving work, or skipping school on the game's release day.

The calculation is based on the assumption that at least 1.5 million Americans will choose not to work on November 19. If this number is correlated with the average contribution of one employee to the annual US GDP, the productivity losses for that day will exceed $1 billion.

This is not an official government forecast, but a mathematical model designed to illustrate the potential scale of the phenomenon. Interest in these calculations surged after the extended presentation of GTA VI, conducted in conjunction with Netflix.