GTA 6 reignites the debate over adults playing video games

GTA 6 and the eternal question: can an adult sit down and play?

There is a scene that repeats itself with every major video game release: a man in his 40s or 50s who spends his evenings with a controller in hand shows up in a public conversation and someone reminds him that "that's for kids." The debate, a perennial one in Spain, has returned with the anticipation surrounding GTA 6, the next installment in the series, which is being billed as one of the biggest in history.

One camp argues that adults who invest thousands of hours in video games should spend that time on something more productive, even on having a few beers at a bar. The other side replies that everyone is free to spend their leisure time as they wish, and that video games have been a legitimate passion for decades. The conversation gets muddled when demographics creep in: some comment equates adult gaming with an alleged social decline, and certain sectors take the opportunity to draw comparisons with other groups, a detour that says more about the speaker than about the original topic.

In parallel, the production of GTA 6 itself has peine another front. The development team, with a majority of women and non-binary people, has been described by some as a sign of decline at major studios. And that is where the awkward fact emerges: despite this supposed commercial decline for cultural reasons, GTA 5 remains, years after its release, the number one seller on Steam for weeks and months at a time. Rock Paper Shotgun documented it, and later IGN bought the outlet. The debate is still alive, and the only certainty is that GTA 6 will sell a great deal, though we shall see whether it surpasses its predecessor.