GTA 5 sold even better after its Epic Store giveaway

News
By last updated

GTA Online is having its best year ever, again, as it hits 135 million sales.

(Image credit: Rockstar)

The unstoppable money-making machine that is Grand Theft Auto 5 is still going strong in 2020, with publisher Take Two predicting an even stronger year for GTA Online in the fiscal year ahead, it said in its Q1 earnings call on Monday. 

Take Two praised the strong performance of GTA Online since its Diamond Casino update last year and record-breaking active player numbers, but what's really surprising is how well GTA 5 has sold, even after it was given away for free on the Epic Games Store.

"In the six weeks following the Epic Store promotion, Grand Theft Auto 5 sold more units in the same period than in any previous year," CEO Strauss Zelnick said. The week-long free giveaway unsurprisingly pushed GTA Online to new highs for in-game spending and the second-best ever period for new player sign-ups since it first launched in 2012.

GTA Online has somehow been massive for eight years, and seems destined to be around for many more: Rockstar will be bringing the game to the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X next year. On PC, it's hardly a surprise that the free giveaway would be a boon to GTA Online's user numbers, but it's amazing to see GTA 5 itself sell even better than ever in the weeks that followed. As Zelnick simply stated to GI.biz, they chalk up those sales to the giveaway "increasing the size of the audience."

Zelnick said that GTA 5 has now passed more than 135 million sales over its lifetime. In February of this year, it was only around the 120 million mark.

Image

GTA 6: All the rumors
GTA 5 mods: Revved up
GTA 5 cheats: Phone it in
San Andreas cheats: All the codes

Wes Fenlon
Wes Fenlon
Senior Editor

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.

When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).

Read more
Grand Theft Auto 5 Enhanced screen - Trevor setting fire to somebody's big dumb truck
Grand Theft Auto 5 Enhanced launch is going poorly or well depending on how you look at it: It's got a 'mixed' rating on Steam and is one of the most-played games
Michael sunbathing in GTA V
3 years later, GTA 5’s Enhanced edition finally comes to PC, and it’s somehow 22GB smaller than GTA 5 Cool Original flavour
Grand Theft Auto 5
GTA 5's next-gen update finally has a March PC release date a mere 3 years after it prettied-up the console versions
GTA 5 Enhanced
Grand Theft Auto 5 Enhanced is a bitter-sweet return to Rockstar's money-making machine
A man holding a gun drives a boat as money flies out the back in GTA Online
Rockstar hornswoggles lapsed GTAO players with $3 million welcome-back offer that actually requires you to spend money to get most of it
GTA 6 trailer
I'm sorry to say Rockstar still won't tell us when (or even if) Grand Theft Auto 6 is coming to PC
Latest in Grand Theft Auto
gta 6 trailer
Publishers 'don't want to be anywhere near' Grand Theft Auto 6 when it launches: 'It's proving to be very stressful'
A man with purple hair and face tattoos poses for a mugshot in the GTA 6 trailer.
Playable GTA 6 map nuked without warning by Take-Two lawyers: 'My guess is that the map was probably a little too accurate'
Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer still - woman in the front seat of a car, looking out the back window while holding a wad of cash
The specter of a GTA 6 delay haunts the games industry: 'Some companies are going to tank' if they guess wrong, says analyst
A man holding a gun drives a boat as money flies out the back in GTA Online
Rockstar hornswoggles lapsed GTAO players with $3 million welcome-back offer that actually requires you to spend money to get most of it
GTA 5 characters
GTA 5 publisher takes legal aim at account-selling site for allegedly raking in 'millions in revenue', while recruiting hackers to keep its cogs turning
GTA 5 Enhanced
Grand Theft Auto 5 Enhanced is a bitter-sweet return to Rockstar's money-making machine
Latest in News
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened
Junah beginning a battle in Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Today's RPG fans are 'very sensitive to feeling like they wasted time' when they die, says Metaphor: ReFantazio battle planner—but Atlus still made combat hard anyway
Image of Cersei Lanniser from Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Steam early access trailer
A new Game of Thrones RPG is coming to Steam today with a cast of 'familiar faces,' which is good because it's really the only way to tell it's a GoT game at all
The new Prime Asset featured in the upcoming update for the Outlast Trials.
The Outlast Trials puts its already paranoid players under surveillance for a time-limited story event
A Viera looking confused in Final Fantasy 14.
Old armor continues to fall victim to Final Fantasy 14's bizarre two-channel dye system, unless you're super into changing the colour of teeny-tiny eyelets: 'Why even bother at this point?'
Starfield: Shattered Space
By the time Bethesda was on Starfield, you'd 'basically get in trouble' for breaking schedule, says former dev: 'A lot of the great stuff within Skyrim came from having the freedom to do what you want'
More about grand theft auto
gta 6 trailer

Publishers 'don't want to be anywhere near' Grand Theft Auto 6 when it launches: 'It's proving to be very stressful'
A man with purple hair and face tattoos poses for a mugshot in the GTA 6 trailer.

Playable GTA 6 map nuked without warning by Take-Two lawyers: 'My guess is that the map was probably a little too accurate'
The title image for Game of Thrones: Kingsroad

New Game of Thrones action-adventure RPG takes you back to Westeros
See more latest
Most Popular
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened
Junah beginning a battle in Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Today's RPG fans are 'very sensitive to feeling like they wasted time' when they die, says Metaphor: ReFantazio battle planner—but Atlus still made combat hard anyway
Image of Cersei Lanniser from Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Steam early access trailer
A new Game of Thrones RPG is coming to Steam today with a cast of 'familiar faces,' which is good because it's really the only way to tell it's a GoT game at all
The new Prime Asset featured in the upcoming update for the Outlast Trials.
The Outlast Trials puts its already paranoid players under surveillance for a time-limited story event
A Viera looking confused in Final Fantasy 14.
Old armor continues to fall victim to Final Fantasy 14's bizarre two-channel dye system, unless you're super into changing the colour of teeny-tiny eyelets: 'Why even bother at this point?'
Otter AI Meeting Agent
As if your work meetings weren't already fun enough, now Otter has a new all-hearing AI agent that remembers everything anyone has said and can join in the discussion
Starfield: Shattered Space
By the time Bethesda was on Starfield, you'd 'basically get in trouble' for breaking schedule, says former dev: 'A lot of the great stuff within Skyrim came from having the freedom to do what you want'
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Ogryn
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide adds a psychic horde murderzone mode and makes Ogryns even smashier
A woman wearing a VR headset with dramatic, colourful lighting across the background
'World’s smallest LEDs' could lead to accurately lit screens with 127,000 pixels per inch and much more immersive VR
Monster Hunter Wilds' stockpile master studying a manifest
As layoffs and studio closures continue to deathroll the western AAA industry, analyst points out 5 of 8 major Japanese companies hit all-time share prices this year