You won't win any prizes for guessing that Grand Theft Auto 5 has sold well since its initial 2013 release, several lifetimes ago, but on a recent Take-Two earnings call, CEO Strauss Zelnick revealed the up-to-date, astronomical figure: 230 million copies.
"The Grand Theft Auto series once again exceeded expectations, and to date, Grand Theft Auto 5 has sold over 230 million units worldwide," Zelnick told investors on the August 7 call. "Recurrent consumer spending for the series grew 3% and GTA Plus continues to thrive. All led by a series of content offerings, including the addition of the Rockstar Mission Creator, an all-new suite of innovative and in-depth tools, empowering the player community to bring missions to life.
"Global excitement for the launch of Grand Theft Auto 6 continues to build, with the title having an exceptional start to pre-orders. With Rockstar Games' recent announcement of Grand Theft Auto 6 and extended look on August 27, we believe the consumers' passion and anticipation for the next evolution of this iconic series will grow further, leading up to the title's November 19 release."
230 million is obviously a lot of copies, but it has a vague "number big" quality without added context. I'll endeavor to provide some in the form of funny statistics and back of the napkin math to drive it home:
- That's over 10 times the estimated lifetime sales of Baldur's Gate 3 (20 million), and 5 times that of Cyberpunk 2077 (40 million).
- GTA5 has sold an average of 17.7 million copies per year, a number uncomfortably close to the 25 million lifetime sales achieved by the bottom entries of Wikipedia's list of the top 50 best-selling games of all time (GTA 5 is third on that list).
- Breaking that down further, GTA 5's average sales of 1.5 million copies per month as a lifetime figure would make for a double-A development success story or indie royalty.
- It's about two thirds the population of the United States, and almost four times that of the United Kingdom.
- Still nowhere near Tetris (estimated 520 million) or Minecraft (est. 400 million).
Number indeed big. It gives you a sense of just what Take-Two is hoping to accomplish with GTA 6 and its estimated multi-billion dollar development budget. Rockstar's upcoming game is an entertainment juggernaut that has every other developer reassessing their fall release schedule, but it also has massive shoes to fill as far as the hungry hungry shareholders are concerned.
