Rockstar hasn’t made any single player DLC for Grand Theft Auto V, and this long after the game’s release, it’ll probably never happen. One reason why? The game’s publisher, Take-Two Interactive, keeps bragging about how much money Grand Theft Auto Online is making.
Take-Two recently held its quarterly financial call, where it talked a big game about how well GTA Online is doing:
- During the holidays, it had “best week ever for both revenues and active players during this holiday season.” (In other words, lots of people played it and bough microtransactions.)
- They’re predicting GTA Online will make more money in the coming year.
While they refused to elaborate on exactly how much money is being generated by GTA Online, we can grab some hints, based on what Take-Two said here:
Starting with our results for the fiscal third quarter, net revenue was $486.8 million as compared to $954 million in last year’s third quarter, which had benefited from a more extensive release slate. This result exceeded our outlook range of $400 million to $450 million due primarily to stronger than expected revenues from Grand Theft Auto V and Grand Theft Auto Online. In addition, NBA 2K16 exceeded our expectations.
It wouldn’t be a surprise if GTA Online was making hundreds of millions of dollars, which miiiiiiiiiight explain why they dropped single player DLC.
Gaming analyst Michael Pachter, whom some Kotaku readers might be familiar with, apologized for questioning Take-Two’s DLC strategy in an analyst note. Pachter now predicts Take-Two could be making $250 million a year off it:
...the fervor with which players have embraced GTA Online suggests that it can deliver $250 million per year for several more years. Should Take-Two decide to make the game free-to-play for players who have NOT purchased the underlying console game, it is likely that overall revenues could double, and could be sustained for a very long time. Accordingly, we apologize for questioning management’s strategy, and we see merit in the pursuit of an online strategy.
I’ve never touched GTA Online, but apparently, lots and lots of other people have.
You can reach the author of this post at patrick.klepek@kotaku.com or on Twitter at @patrickklepek.