Earlier this week, Rockstar Games' parent company Take-Two revealed thatGrand Theft Auto 5has now shipped over 60 million copies. While Trevor, Michael and Franklin’s criminal antics in the main campaign have been a huge reason for that figure, multiplayer modeGrand Theft Auto Onlineis surely a big factor too.
GTA Onlinemay have had a rocky launch during its initial, last-gen release but with regular updates such as the recentDrop Zone game mode,GTA Onlineplayers have had more than a few reasons to keep coming back. In fact, so many players are playingGTA Online, that it continues to set records for itself.
Speaking during the company’s earnings briefing, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick revealed thatGTA Onlineplayers are still “highly engaged” and that over the recent holiday season, the mode had its best week ever in terms of number of active players and revenue (the mode features microtransactions).
Unfortunately, Zelnick didn’t disclose specific numbers for the holiday season (though prior to the holidays, 8 million people were playingGTA Onlinea week), but the Take-Two boss did acknowledge why the game has such a “high engagement.“GTA Online’s seasonal updates – the Halloween Surprise which included a hearse and new masks, and the Festive Surprise which included Santa outfits and Christmas-themed card horns – were both mentioned as factors. Additionally, Zelnick said that theExecutives and Other Criminals update(which introduced a Super Yacht) and theLowriders update(which introduced the iconic bouncing cars) were a massive appeal too.
On the one hand,GTA Onlineplayers will be glad to hear that the mode they’ve put so much time in is doing so well. There is already so much to do in the game – from car and character customization to the huge range of Adversary modes – but this success surely means that Rockstar will continue to support it for quite some time. Moreover, those updates will hopefully tide players over until the nextGrand Theft Autogame is released.
Others, however, are already speculating that this is the reason why the game’s story DLC has proved so elusive. It does look like that DLC is on the way (ifteasers from Franklin’s voice actorare to be believed) but ifGTA Onlineis still making bank and fans are asking for updates, some fear that Rockstar will postpone its release even further.
