GTA: V Now the Highest Grossing Media Title Ever

rgMekanic

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MarketWatch is reporting that Grand Theft Auto 5 has beaten out every other game and movie ever made, and is now the most financially successful media title of all time. Since its 2013 launch, GTA: V has sold 90 million units, putting it's total haul in the neighborhood of $6 billion.

I'm purposefully ignoring the grandstanding in the article, and focusing on the numbers, and I must say they are impressive. I purchased GTA: V at launch for the 360, and with all the changes, bannings, rollbacks and the like, it completely lost its appeal for me long before it was launched for PC. Thanks to cageymaru for the story.

The online world of “GTA V” also creates a model, says KeyBanc analyst Evan Wingren, where as people spend real money on online components, it allows Rockstar to reinvest resources into developing more content, which in turn fuels more spending by players. “It fuels this virtuous cycle.”
 
This belongs here.

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I love how people still count games like Mario as "units sold" even though it was just thrown the box. That doesn't count.

In other news, amazing how you can be the best even with the least sales ...

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False. It has not out grossed any other game, it has a long way to go before it catches Blizzard's World of Warcraft which is at nearly $10 billion.
Pretty sure Blizzard makes you buy a new expansion every couple years. So Is it still the same game? Eh maybe? At the very least WoW should have been mentioned in the article.
 
Wasn't WOW making like over a billion a month for a year?
 
Bought it in the last steam sale, waited 2-3 hours for 70gig download, then saw it required a lame rockstar account. Refund in under 60 seconds.

Seriously, all you damned corporate jerks:
 
Even WoW is not on top, some mobile game in asia are making much more IIRC.
 
As others have mentioned, WoW and other subscription based games are not a valid comparison... especially given you have to pay for each expansion.
 
As others have mentioned, WoW and other subscription based games are not a valid comparison... especially given you have to pay for each expansion.

They could just count sales of the base game iirc wow peaked at 12 milion subscribers at one point in wotlk and blizz already mentioned that there were losts of players leaving and joining, so they could have sold at least double that in it's entire lifespan, but they won't reach GTAV lvl's of sale.

Also not sure about the accuracy of the article as they state PC sales accounting for 2.1% while according to steamspy over 10 milion people have the game on steam which would account for over 10%.

Also tetris sold over 170 milion copies kind of contradicting this statement “I think it’s a wild outlier,” Creutz told MarketWatch in a phone interview. “I think maybe with the exception something Nintendo has made—Mario Brothers—but aside from that there’s never been a console game that’s sold so many units.”

Anyways, gz to them, have it installed usually lose interest after playing for around 10 minutes, the story missions don't seem to follow each other like in most games and you got to randomly look around on the map to try and find a new mission.
 
Never played it. GTA4 on the PC was the last one that I played and GTA Vice City was the last one that I actually completed the main story. They are fun for the first couple of hours, then I get bored with them.
 
What is the difference between spending $50 on an expansion or $50 on a shark card?

One is required to play, the other isn't. You might as well also include money spent on buying gold for WoW if you're going down that route.
 
One is required to play, the other isn't. You might as well also include money spent on buying gold for WoW if you're going down that route.
Last I checked you are not required to buy every expansion to continue playing WoW. In fact, if you wait long enough you'll get previous expansions added to your account for free. Right now, all players have every expansion through Warlords of Draenor whether they bought them or not.
 
Would be nice to see RS open up GTA V to the modding community with some tools for Single player like Skyrim. It does not have to affect the online world, just single player. I would pay for tools and DLC's for single player, but online can blow me.
 
There's ton of ways you can calculate World of Warcraft making a ton more money than any other game.

Let's assume a 5 Million subscriber base over 13 years with just the base game cost with no expansions.

5 Million Players * $15 subscription * 12 Months * 13 years = $11.7 Billion. Add to that the initial cost of the game which was around $50 and that total rises to roughly $12 Billion.

If you add to that the 6, soon to be 7 expansions over the years: 5 Million Low Ball * $50 * 6 = $1.5 Billion just off of expansion sales.

Then you'd also have to find a way to get service transaction fees added to this ranging anywhere from $10 - $35 for things like name changes, race changes, faction changes, and server transfers. Honestly, I would imagine this was in the Billion(s) range easily.

Even if we're looking at what I consider a really low ball at $15 Billion, not including merchandising, Blizzcon income, the movie which brought in about $400 million, I really don't see how GTA V can even hold a candle to the World of Warcraft property.
 
Last I checked you are not required to buy every expansion to continue playing WoW. In fact, if you wait long enough you'll get previous expansions added to your account for free. Right now, all players have every expansion through Warlords of Draenor whether they bought them or not.
That's cool. Then it sounds almost identical to GTA Online in that all the heist content is available to everyone. Honestly, I'm not sure what the point of the Shark Cards are since I've never bought them and typically only do the Stunt Races. Are they for purchasing cosmetic stuff or are they for buying guns\gear\cars to make it more of a P2W kind of thing?
 
Last I checked you are not required to buy every expansion to continue playing WoW. In fact, if you wait long enough you'll get previous expansions added to your account for free. Right now, all players have every expansion through Warlords of Draenor whether they bought them or not.

That's true, but it's not really how it worked out, is it - I mean, the vast majority bought every expansion on top of paying for their monthly subscription. I highly doubt there are that many players who didn't buy Legion, and by the same token, most will buy the next one too.

With GTA V - you bought the game, and you had the whole game (note: I am not a GTA V player, so if I am wrong here, let me know). There was no more game added that you had to pay for. If they had, people would have bought that too no doubt, which would have pushed the figures even higher if you combined them.
 
That's cool. Then it sounds almost identical to GTA Online in that all the heist content is available to everyone. Honestly, I'm not sure what the point of the Shark Cards are since I've never bought them and typically only do the Stunt Races. Are they for purchasing cosmetic stuff or are they for buying guns\gear\cars to make it more of a P2W kind of thing?

gameplay in online is very linelar and heist is limited for 4 players.

cars are expensive.

most gamers dont see infinite grind as fun. its fun buy stuff. no winning in this game :sneaky:.

90% player base use hax. its fun. :p
 
after the dumpster fire of gta 4, pretty much anything was going to win the lotto.
 
I want to get this game.. but its like the price is never coming down. Not sure I'd get enough play out of it for the full price.
 
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