Eye-watering GTA 6 revenue projection suggest another record-breaker for Rockstar
2025 is shaping up to be a big year for AAA games with titles like Death Stranding 2, Doom: The Dark Ages, Avowed, Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, etc, set to grace the machines of gamers worldwide. However, none of the AAA titles releasing in 2025 is more anticipated than Grand Theft Auto VI.
After a decade under wraps, Rockstar finally showed GTA 6 in a debut trailer in December 2023. The trailer which has since amassed more than 230 million views is a testament to the appetite of gamers who have been starved for a new GTA game since the September 2013 release of GTA V. This appetite might result in GTA 6 leapfrogging GTA V in revenue, as an estimate from DFC Intelligence suggests a 2x increase in revenue for Rockstar’s upcoming title in its debut year.
GTA 6 is expected to vastly outperform GTA V
Per DFC Intelligence (via Financial Times), GTA VI is estimated to gross a whopping $3.2 billion in revenue within 12 months of its release. This $3.2 billion revenue includes a pre-order estimate of around $1 billion.
To put the proposed total GTA 6 revenue for the first 12 months into perspective, consider that Avatar (2009), the highest-grossing film of all time, has made $2.9 billion in its lifetime. GTA VI beating Avatar’s lifetime earnings within a year would be an incredible feat.
GTA VI could beat GTA V’s lifetime earnings
If GTA 6 does rack in more than $3 billion in its first year, it would put GTA VI in a position to outperform GTA V over its lifetime, especially since Rockstar is rumored to bring the game to PCs a while later than consoles. This would effectively allow Rockstar to sell the game twice.
To date, GTA V has sold more than 200 million copies and has racked in more than $8.6 billion. GTA Online, the multiplayer component of GTA V, is responsible for a large portion of this $8.6 billion. For instance, GTA Online reportedly brought $500 million in revenue in 2022. So, once Rockstar releases the multiplayer component of GTA 6 after the release of the single player experience, we can expect it to give another big boost to the overall earnings of the title.
Put simply, GTA 6 is set to be a much bigger game than its predecessor in both scale and revenue. Now it remains to be seen whether Rockstar releases the title in 2025 or pushes the GTA 6 release date back. Many fans fear the latter as there hasn’t been any major updates regarding the game since the release of the first trailer in 2023.
Source(s)
DFC Intelligence via Financial Times (paywall)
