Grand Theft Auto 5 Online Big Earner for Rockstar

GTA Online

Grand Theft Auto 5’s online may be free to play, but the online micro-transactions have proven to be extremely popular, reportedly earning around $500 million.

The news was revealed as part of the ongoing lawsuit between Rockstar North President, Leslie Benzies and Take-Two Interactive, according to Gamespot.

A report from the lawsuit claims that “GTA’s online has the potential to achieve the greatest profit margin of any game created in the GTA franchise,” and Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has called it, “the gift that keeps on giving.”

GTA Online has an average of 8 million players every week and has sold around 60 million copies to date, and shows no signs of slowing down. Whilst this is good news for Take-Two, this further heightens concerns for fans of the single player mode who are eagerly awaiting story DLC.

At the same point in GTA 4’s life cycle, both expansion packs, The Ballard of Gay Tony and The Lost and Damned had been released. However, given the rampant success of the GTA Online, it seems that Rockstar have little incentive at present to release any story DLC, as the multi-transactions have “nearly 100 percent profit margin,” except for development costs and fees collected by storefronts.

Anyone also expecting GTA 6 to be announced soon should not get their hopes up, as the cost of producing DLC for the online mode is considerably less than that of full feature game. Rockstar may be the developers of fantastic games, but they are a commercial company first and foremost and will most likely keep doing what is more cost-effective until it is no longer viable.

When looking back at the time elapsed between GTA 4’s release and GTA 5’s announcement dates, it is around three years and five months. If using that same logic, GTA 6 should be getting announced around this time next year, although given the popularity of the online mode, it could be a little while longer.

Rockstar have expressed previous interest in producing a single-player DLC, though no formal announcements have been made. The focus has been put instead to providing regular updates for GTA Online, with the latest being Inch by Inch, a new team based adversary mode.

GTA V is available now on PS4Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360, and PC.

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