On September 24, Rockstar revealed a $400 collector’s edition of GTA 6. Within just a few days, fans had begun producing their own copies of it at home, paying whatever amount they chose.
Their focus is Macca the Alligator, the cartoon mascot figure packed inside the box. One person recreated the entire figure as a 3D model and posted it online as a printable file. Rather than handing over $400, fans can pay the file’s creator whatever they like and run it through their own printer.
What $400 gets you, and what it doesn’t
What bothers people most is that the game itself isn’t in the collector’s edition. For close to $400, Rockstar is handing buyers a box of GTA 6-themed merchandise and nothing more.
The package contains the alligator figure, a set of stickers, pins, a hat and Oakley sunglasses. The sunglasses likely account for most of the cost. No one is going to 3D print a pair of Oakleys, but at least one item in the set has proven simple to replicate.
A fan from Brazil shared photos of their progress on X. They had finished printing the alligator’s first section and said all that remained were the tail and the base.
The internet can’t agree on this one
Opinion is divided, with little middle ground between the two groups. Some see the printed copies as a clever answer to a pricey product. Others argue that a home-printed replica defeats the entire purpose of owning something scarce.
“Why would you print it if it already lost its main and only purpose, which is rarity?” asked one user on X/Twitter.
Another wrote: “Dude, I’m all for criticizing the price, but this is just f**king stupid.”
Many others welcomed the idea, however. “I imagined this would happen, but not so soon… That said, I want one,” said one commenter.
“This is the coolest thing! I only wanted this [figure], but I wasn’t about to drop $400 to get it,” wrote another.
The Red Dead comparison nobody at Rockstar wants
Much of the broader debate keeps circling back to the Red Dead Redemption 2 collector’s edition. That package sold for $100 and included items more directly connected to the game, such as a physical copy of the in-game map. Many players consider it the better box, and it came in at a quarter of the cost.
The timing of the GTA 6 box is also rough for anyone hoping to own an actual disc. The game’s “physical” edition is physical only in name: it’s a case holding a download code. That choice is probably tied to Rockstar's effort to stop early leaks, but players are linking it to Sony’s plans to completely end production of physical game discs by January 2028.
For many fans, then, the nearest they’ll get to owning a tangible piece of GTA 6 is a plastic alligator printed at home, finishing the tail and base one at a time.