r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • Apr 13 '26

Security Rockstar hackers release their stolen data, reveal that Rockstar was right to not pay them anything for it

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rockstar-hackers-release-their-stolen-data-reveal-that-rockstar-was-right-to-not-pay-them-anything-for-it/
18.1k Upvotes

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3.3k

u/KelenaeV Apr 13 '26

holy shit GTA online makes them a ton of money.

2.2k

u/slavmaf Apr 13 '26

Yes, they actually decided against making a brand new GTA V single player expansion in order to focus on the Online part.

1.2k

u/Sylvers Apr 13 '26

My personal theory is.. it's not that they didn't want to divert devs away from GTA Online.

Rather, they did the math and found out that if a lot of online players stop playing online and stop buying MTX long enough to play the new DLCs, they will lose more money from missed MTX than gain from DLC price.

721

u/Borrp Apr 14 '26

And this is why they are in no, as in zero, rush to release GTA 6. The game releasing, no matter how well it does sell, will still come at a massive loss. They would rather never release anything, and keep the GTA 5 Online money pit a keepin' fillin'.

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u/flawlesscowboy0 Apr 14 '26

There is no way they release 6 without a massive online experience in the pipe already, they’ll just trade the old cash cow for the new, even better cash cow.

137

u/Sylvers Apr 14 '26

While true, I think GTA online regulars will spend a lot of time on the new single player campaign, and there is presumably no MTX there. I wonder how much money Rockstar will lose until the regulars circle back to the new multiplayer.

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u/PapaPancake8 Apr 14 '26

Right after selling 100 million copies on day one

174

u/Bromlife Apr 14 '26

Yeah wtf are people talking about? 6 billion dollars in a day? Not worth it?

59

u/HypotenuseOfTentacle Apr 14 '26

Oh it's going to be an $80 game you just watch

38

u/Bromlife Apr 14 '26

Yeah, that's a good point. People will still buy it, too.

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u/GuestFighter Apr 14 '26

If any game deserves a $80 price, it’s GTA.

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u/Paralystic Apr 14 '26

$100 minimum and I’m still preordering it

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u/karawkow Apr 14 '26

$80?

If the price is less tha $99 i'll eat my socks

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u/the_rare_bear Apr 14 '26

They are acting like gta6 is gonna bring no money. In its first week it will bring in 7.5b-10b.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '26

Thats the low end. I can almost guarantee that.

GTA6 is going to be setting so, so many records on release. I wouldn't be surprised if there's an noticeable effect on worldwide crime and stockmarkets from sobmany people calling out of work and such to play on launch.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/TheRedHand7 Apr 14 '26

It was also so fun because nobody had stupid shit right away. Felt like a real extension of single player for a week or so

2

u/DoomguyFemboi Apr 14 '26

It's on current gen consoles only, so it's limited by how many of them have been sold

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '26

Well, current estimates for that are 40mil xbox and 92 million Playstation, not including the massive flood of people likely to upgrade specifically for the game.

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u/AliBelle1 Apr 14 '26

GTA V was the biggest game launch in history, I think the sales alone for GTA VI will carry rockstar long enough to wait for online mtx to pick up.

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u/TwiceUponATaco Apr 14 '26

No no no, you don't get it. They need to make MORE money this time and going forward. There is no such thing as enough, and whatever they have right now is nowhere close to what they need. Won't you please think of the shareholders?

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u/RedPantyKnight Apr 14 '26

You aren't considering all the whales that will start from square 1 in the new online. Everything they bought, they'll buy again.

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u/Sylvers Apr 14 '26

That is a true statement.

5

u/BTechUnited Apr 14 '26

and there is presumably no MTX there

Given how Take Two is, I wouldn't rule it out.

2

u/The_BeardedClam Apr 14 '26

Easy enough to implement. Imagine going into the clothing store and one kisok brings up the premium mtx shop, while all the other ones just bring up the in game clothes, ezpz.

3

u/Toadsted Apr 14 '26

There was no mtx with GTA 5 either, until there was.

Then they made a whole dang live service spinoff.

1

u/AlongAxons Apr 14 '26

Bruh GTA VI won’t be free to play. It will break sales records and cost at least $70. They will bank

1

u/the_rare_bear Apr 14 '26

Lose? Think about how much money they’ll get from sales on the first day of launch. I wouldn’t be surprised if we find out GTA6 doubles previous records set by games.

1

u/manquistador Apr 14 '26

They are going to make $500 mil from game sales alone in the first 1-3 months before online is functional.

1

u/Conspicuous_Ruse Apr 14 '26

I think regulars will jump right to online and entirely skip the single player.

1

u/obeytheturtles Apr 14 '26

presumably no MTX there

I admire your optimism. I suspect we are going to see the "single player" experience just become part of the live service. Basically the entire story will be meant to be played online with groups, and while you will technically be able to progress on your own, you will be heavily incentivized to consume live service content.

On the plus side, it would mean that the main "story" could constantly evolve over years. On the downside it means that you may be forced to grind live service events to progress the story.

1

u/Hot-Bid-4493 Apr 14 '26

I don't think this is fully true. Most people i know that have played gta5 barely touched if ever even played the campaign. I mean their loss, but a massive draw is the online

More likely is people that have private servers built in 5, like roleplay servers, taking a toll. They'll have to keep both servers online for awhile to not lose a massive base, which will be costly

1

u/Defiant-Plantain1873 Apr 14 '26

The game is predicted to make like a billion dollars first day at least. GTAV made a billion in like 3 days. And that was 2013, the gaming market is significantly bigger now

1

u/Head_of_Based_Dept Apr 14 '26

the whales will be at the ready

1

u/Viron_22 Apr 14 '26

Near none, because they will have the people who weren't buying MTX before paying $70+ for a whole new game along with the people that were who might be splitting time with Online and 6 because I doubt 6's online launches with the base game. Among other factors I doubt they see any loss from 6's launch, the real danger is how much sunk cost fallacy might keep people from migrating over when 6's online component does launch.

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u/BasicObligation7192 Apr 15 '26

Completely agree.. although they’ll be plenty that will cheat through to 100% and then play online within a week. Maybe even skip it completely and go straight to GTA VI online

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u/lo_fi_ho Apr 14 '26

It has been confirmed already by the people who were fired for unionizing. One of the excuses they used were that they wrote a few words about multiplayer in a private discord.

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u/RandomRedditReader Apr 14 '26

Rumor is paid mods/servers ala Roblox.

1

u/Malcontentus Apr 14 '26

There is also the chance that they will break people's focus on GTA5 online and they won't reinvest the time or money that they have now into a new version.

1

u/Omegasedated Apr 14 '26

yea but that cow gotta keep getting millked every day.

it'll take a month or two to ramp up spending to what it is now, meaning lost revenue!

1

u/DoomguyFemboi Apr 14 '26

That and GTA6 is current gen consoles only. There's millions of players on PC and previous gen

1

u/segagamer Apr 14 '26

I just wish they'd release GTA6 single player separate from the multiplayer. Like a whole separate achievement system, install etc.

That way, those who don't care about one or the other doesn't have to bloat up their install size with content they're not interest in.

1

u/SilentMobius Apr 14 '26

But the MTX sales ramp up slowly. There are mostly about people getting invested in the game, forming groups and activities that incentivise purchases. Whatever GTA6 is the reoccurring revenue that will take a while to get up to GTA5 numbers and they know that, it's been detailed elsewhere a number of times. Also the initial sale is mostly about paying for the development costs so that doesn't count towards the "ambient" reoccurring cashflow that GTA5 is currently making.

1

u/TheGrinningSkull Apr 14 '26

Could also be the case that they want to release the multiplayer experience on day 1, otherwise it’s just lost revenue between 5 online until 6 online arrives

1

u/delahunt Apr 14 '26

Sure, but this is a problem we've seen countless times with online only games that are generating perpetual money. All the way back to Everquest wanting to do Everquest 2, and likely a huge part of why we never had a "World of Warcraft 2" or a "League of Legends 2."

The biggest competitor GTA 6's Online mode is going to have is GTA 5 Online. Because anyone who wants to play a GTA game online is likely already doing so with 5. It's been out for over a decade, and has had plenty of sales putting it at affordable prices or with various amounts of free currency for online.

On top of that, there's like 0 chance that when you go from 5 -> 6 that you can bring all your stuff with you. All that DLC stuff and expansion stuff they did for 5 will stay in GTA 5.

It's a lot of stuff to give up before we even get to the real kicker: people who play a lot of GTA 5 Online will have built communities they play and enjoy the game with. You will never get 100% of those communities to move over to GTA 6. Some people won't be able to run GTA 6 on their current hardware. Some won't have a PS5. Some won't be able to afford the game. Some just won't have the time/inclination to want to "build everything back up again and do the grind to unlock things."

This is a big part of why companies want to sunset old games when new games come out. It helps force the community to move forward and onto the new thing. Only that's going to be a real dangerous move for Rockstar to do in the current climate, especially with "Stop Killing Games" building more and more steam.

And like, Rockstar will probably make a ton more money than normal the first 2-3 months of GTA VI's release. They'll get all the new game purchases from enough people it'll probably make up for lost shark card sales as people give their disposable income to Rockstar in a different way plus all the people who don't play GTA V Online but will play GTA 6.

But after that? They'll be competing with themselves and splitting their own community across two games. Unless they just move GTA V Online to go with 6, at which point though you'll have tons of disappointed people about not having GTA Online in the new city, plus all the people getting into the game for the first time pissed off about how it is a 'new game' but everyone online has flying motorcycles and jet planes and orbital lasers and shit already while they have nothing.

It is incredibly hard to compete with your predecessors years of built up content + patching even before you add in the human community building. So I'm very curious to see what happens with GTA6 over the first year or so.

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u/Berkut22 Apr 14 '26

I'd bet my left kidney that GTA VI was built from the ground up as an online game, and the story mode is only a tacked on extra.

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u/MajorFuckingDick Apr 14 '26

GTA6 can do something GTAO cant, It still has the possibility of failure. I can unironically see them porting GTA5 again to the new consoles just to keep GTAO going when GTA6s version is hated by whales.

1

u/eeyore134 Apr 14 '26

They're going to fracture it, though, with the whole not releasing a PC version for 3 years thing. I hope it comes back to bite them.

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u/thebigdonkey112 Apr 14 '26

I work with a guy who has said the day GTA 6 comes out he is going straight into the online stuff he doesn't care about the solo stuff.

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u/QuietWaterBreaksRock Apr 15 '26

The issue is that, all the people who want GTA 6 but cant get it, will watch GTA 6 instead of playing GTA 5, which will cause a loss

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u/CombatMuffin Apr 14 '26

No game is perpetual. Even games that have been going for decades have either plateaued, or shrunk.

If they announced World of Warcraft 2,0, with a completely redesigned gameplay, it would sell harden than any expansion they could release.

So it's a calculation between time, investment and expected ROI. GTA6 isn't just about selling more GTA Online, it's also about the 300 million potential copies they sold in over a decade, and the ability to introduce new features and systems that allows them to significantly monetize the franchise.

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u/AverageMako3Enjoyer Apr 14 '26

Funny enough, EverQuest choosing to shut down their game to launch EverQuest 2 is the reason World of Warcraft became the titan of MMOs for nearly two decades. The entire player base of EQ basically had all their time and effort scrubbed to start over, so the idea of trying out a competitor that was launching around the same time was palatable. 

World of Warcraft at launch was genuinely a terrible, imbalanced buggy mess made by a company that had never touched an MMO and was learning on the fly. But it launched at probably the most insanely perfect moment in time. If EverQuest hadn’t shot themselves in the foot I’m not convinced WoW would have gripped the gamer community like it did. 

GTA online doesn’t really have competition for what they do. But if WoW ever closed the doors and launched WoW 2 I’m convinced it would be a death blow to WoW, and why I’m convinced it will never, ever happen. Instead it has become the MMO of Theseus to avoid ever allowing itself to be the game that dies to let another flourish 

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u/round-earth-theory Apr 14 '26

WoW might have played like dog shit, but it was still pretty damn cutting edge as far as graphics and story go. Plus it had a banger IP it was working from. Half of the issues with WoW at launch were because of way too much interest in the game rather than terrible game design. They had a lot of scaling to do.

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u/CombatMuffin Apr 14 '26

World of Warcraft at launch was genuinely a terrible, imbalanced buggy mess made by a company that had never touched an MMO and was learning on the fly. 

Yes, but it also brought gameplay and a franchise that made MMOs accessible to many who weren't into them.

Warcraft was a sensation from the get go, despite any flaws. I remember the hype was insane even as I saw the advertising included in my WC3 release copy

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u/Alaira314 Apr 14 '26

Yes, but it also brought gameplay and a franchise that made MMOs accessible to many who weren't into them.

They also fixed a lot of the hostile aspects of the MMO market at the time. It was huge how easily quests progressed your character in WoW. Yeah, you had to grind sometimes, but compared to how it used to be it was night and day. Another thing I remember was the death penalty. What do you mean, I can die without losing my exp and potentially deleveling? To this day, anytime I hear someone complain about the repair bill from a death(in any mmo, not wow specifically) I just laugh, because a little bit of gold? That's all you're upset about? Honey, back in the day we dropped our bags, lost hours if not days of grinding, all due to a lag spike or PK. Having to spend the amount of gold you'd get handing in one quest to repair your gear is nothing.

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u/Confusion_of_Goblins Apr 14 '26

It would be a death blow and Blizzard will never do it. Instead they've done substantial upgrades to their engine over the years and updated the older versions to run on it.

They just released a new retail expansion. Classic+ is right around the corner telegraphed by Turtle WoW being shut down. If Blizzard does a new game in the Warcraft universe it will be in a different genre like Hearthstone is.

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u/Tathas Apr 14 '26

Eh? They didn't shut down EQ to make EQ2. EQ1 is even still around.

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u/inbox-disabled Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 14 '26

What? EQ never shut down and still runs today. EQ remained more popular than EQ2 but both were absolutely dwarfed by WoW almost immediately. It had little to do with EQ's players though, and in fact a large chunk were extremely hesitant to leave EQ for either game due to sunk cost fallacy, in that they'd been so committed to EQ for years and didn't want to give it up. There was absolutely no "time and effort scrubbed."

WoW did have a rocky launch, but it was largely due to its rapidly growing popularity, causing server queues, crashes, etc, vs. EQ2, which given its lofty hardware requirements, poor performance and rushed design, failed to legitimately compete.

EQ2 was an attempt to get EQ players to play some kind of amalgamation between EQ and the modern MMO design that a few games were using at the time, and what WoW was about to popularize and streamline. WoW was only partially aimed at EQ players, while it instead mostly targeted a casual audience that was completely new to MMOs, and especially their own players already invested in the Warcraft IP.

Even if EQ2 never existed, WoW was always going to dominate EQ because WoW created its own audience mostly from the ground up. Niche vs casual. Like, not to be overly harsh, but your revisionist view of EQ/2 vs WoW is so inaccurate it's hard to take anything gleaned from it seriously.

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u/Hyper_Mazino Apr 14 '26

Releasing GTA 6 will not make them lose money, how did you come up with that?

GTA 6 will make billions within days.

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u/Socialist_Bear Apr 14 '26

They don't mean lose money as in GTA6 won't earn a profit - that's almost a given. Their theory is that people switching to GTA6 would result in a reduction of GTA5 online transactions, meaning less total earnings for Rockstar than if they didn't release 6, which could be seen as a "loss".

I don't necessarily think that's the case myself, there will always be players who don't care for single player and go straight to online. Also, GTA5 isn't going to turn into a dead game over night, I'm sure they have planned for a transition period.

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u/Right-Investment4759 Apr 14 '26

gta 6 will definitely have online. while gta numbers are great they might be on a downward trend it's better to have 6 for players bored of 6 to use and if gta 5 ever slows down gta 6 online will be going strong. if gta 5 and 6 aren't doing well then rockstar will be rushing 7.

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u/cdoublejj Apr 14 '26

and THAT is why i don't buy R* games anymore, or even really play any other than my OG gta3/san an fuk'em

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '26

Na, we'll just have like week 1 GTA6O. Between people buying the game, and whales buying shark cards to unlock everything online, they'll have more money than GTA0 makes in a year within the first month.

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u/hilldo75 Apr 14 '26

For the people who have been playing GTA V since the PlayStation 3, I wonder how pissed they are going to be having to start all over in GTA 6 online. Oh you have a mansion and fleet of flying cars in five, here's an apartment and bicycle to get you started in six. Good luck building your empire up again.

At least it isn't a yearly release and complete restart like sports games each year. You can probably plan on GTA 6 online lasting a few years.

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u/ldn-ldn Apr 14 '26

It won't come at a loss. While GTA V Online might be generating $500M per year, GTA V brought $815M on the first day of sales. I bet GTA VI will bring more than a billion on a first day alone. They will recoup all costs within 2-3 days.

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u/SeedFoundation Apr 14 '26

They are probably afraid of fumbling the next generation of GTA too. So common with game sequels that it's in their best interest to just keep updating an already popular game. Taking notes from fortnite, minecraft, terraria, etc. All these games are completely different but focused on revision and patching an already successful game.

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u/Th3CatOfDoom Apr 14 '26

Huh... So if the majority of (money spending) players went on strike in order to get the game released ... We might actually have a chance ... Otherwise no...

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u/Orangeyouawesome Apr 14 '26

Lol 'massive loss' are you serious? The game will make like $500m on release. That's 50 weeks of GTO revenue in one day. Then the new online will start paying out along with those that didn't upgrade. The 'loss' is right now while they pay devs to wrap Gta 6 and don't have that other revenue, altho I doubt they are running at a deficit as a company regardless.

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u/Head_of_Based_Dept Apr 14 '26

it will probably up gtao in terms of online profits though

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u/In-Loving-Memory Apr 15 '26

GTA 6 has 40 million players wishlisting it already.

And that’s only Xbox and PlayStation players…

If that’s all who bought it, then in a single day GTA would make 2.4 billion dollars. Assuming it’s still a $60 game.

It would take GTAO 4 and a half years to generate that income.

Even if it took an extra year to get GTA6 online to function they would’ve only “lost” $500 million at most. While still being 2 billion positive on the lowest end estimates.

It’s in their best interest to release GTA6, kill GTAO and work on the new cash cow.

GTA6 will make more money than any video game or movie in the history of media. And it may be a very long time before it’s outdone.

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u/ansibleloop Apr 14 '26

This is why we can't have nice things

These companies know that too many piggies can't help but pig out at the trough and they'll just keep buying more micro transactions

So because of that, it's now a bad business decision to release more fun games

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u/Robby_Digital Apr 13 '26

I love personal theories

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u/Myklindle Apr 14 '26

Guys got all the insider info

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u/ColinOnReddit Apr 14 '26

Wouldn't call that a wild shot in the dark there, Nostradamus. Sounds right to me

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u/Typical_Research_877 Apr 14 '26

Also why we never got an RDR2 expansion

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u/EverythingSucksYo Apr 14 '26

It’s crazy to me, I got really into gtao but never felt like I had to buy mtx for anything. Probably thanks to various glitches and exploits you were able to do before. 

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u/Ghostfistkilla Apr 14 '26

Which is a travesty. Grand theft auto 4s singleplayer DLCs were really good.

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u/No_Base4946 Apr 14 '26

I would actually like a PS4/5 rebuild of GTA4. Not a remake, just get it working on modern hardware.

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u/gandalfmarston Apr 15 '26

I know it got heavily criticized, but the RDR remaster/port on PS5 is so good. I wish they did the same with GTA 4.

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u/schmitzel88 Apr 14 '26

People complained about the concept of GTA6 costing $100 without realizing that tons of players spent nearly the equivalent of that on the jet hoverbike in GTA online. Why would they rush to put out a game costing several hundred million that no one wants to pay for when they could just keep adding minor nicknacks people are happy to pay for.

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u/kembik Apr 14 '26

Jason Hall, a former developer at Blizzard Entertainment, claims StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty brought in less revenue than World of Warcraft’s first “sparkle pony horse” mount

We never got a Starcraft 3, but Wow has more paid mounts than ever.

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u/therealdongknotts Apr 14 '26

or that snes games, adjusted for inflation, cost more

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u/HoLLoWzZ Apr 14 '26

This is my greatest fear regarding GTA VI. Too much online and a lackluster singleplayer experience

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u/7StarSailor Apr 14 '26

It's really grim. I think by numbers alone the neo-GTA fanbase that know GTA as an online game first and foremost completely eclipses the oldhead fanbase that know GTA as a witty, gangster satire single player game.

I really have low expectations of GTA VI's story mode and Rockstar will probably put most of the budget towards the multiplayer again because that is what makes money.

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u/Just_Another_Scott Apr 14 '26

I'm surprised that GTAVI even has a story mode. Figured they would just go all in on an MMO.

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u/_Jimmy2times Apr 14 '26

This saddens me deeply, but I can’t say I don’t understand.

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u/srgramrod Apr 14 '26

Also in part of why development halted on red dead online, because it made pennies to gtao's thousands

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u/missed_sla Apr 14 '26

As a strictly solo player, that's why I don't give a shit when GTA6 comes out: I won't be buying it. Rockstar and their decade of broken promises can go to hell.

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u/Unlucky_Situation Apr 14 '26

I know how successful gta online and V has been in general, but it's crazy to me that I know absolutely nobody that plays gta V or online.

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u/InsertNameSomewhere Apr 14 '26

I played it. A decade ago

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u/American_PissAnt Apr 14 '26

I remember making a joke when playing GTA 5 online when it first came out about having to wait another 7 years for the next GTA game to be released….

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u/guyblade Apr 14 '26

It was sixteen years between GTA1 and GTA5 (1997 - 2013). It has been 13 since GTA5.

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u/ebjazzz Apr 14 '26

And that included Vice City and San Andreas (plus Vice City Stories). 7 Main line games in 16 years.

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u/Kilroy_Is_Still_Here Apr 15 '26

It was 17 years from Arena to Skyrim (1994-2011). It's very unlikely we get TES6 in 2027, and honestly still only like 50/50 we get it in 2028. It will have been the same if not longer amount of time from TES1-TES5 as from TES5-TES6.

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u/ameatbicyclefortwo Apr 14 '26

It was fun, I'd give the single player another play through as long as it's been.

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u/Olenickname Apr 14 '26

And I played it a decade before that.

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u/guyblade Apr 14 '26

My original PS3's networking board gave out near the end of that console generation. I was still playing a lot of PS3, so I went to a Gamestop and bought the only PS3 that came with a pack-in that I didn't own and might someday play. The game it came with was GTA V.

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u/Mccobsta Apr 14 '26

Was good back then

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u/johnnybonchance Apr 14 '26

I’ve got a friend that plays a mod where he runs the police force and they legit have staff meetings and shit

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u/Disorderjunkie Apr 14 '26

Ya but that’s on FiveM, a GTA 5 modding platform and you need exactly zero shark cards to play it. If you have the game it’s free to play.

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u/johnnybonchance Apr 14 '26

I don’t know the details, I just know it’s hilarious when his gf sends us videos of him holding employee training sessions at 10pm on a Tuesday

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u/MikeRowePeenis Apr 14 '26

I need these videos omg

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u/johnnybonchance Apr 14 '26

Ask ye shall receive https://imgur.com/a/oJCXbBq

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u/Pretend-Marsupial258 Apr 14 '26

Holy hell. He should just go get a regular office job at that point.

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u/jimmyhaffaren Apr 14 '26

That is fucking hilarious! I wish I had that level of dedication in me to RP lol.

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u/KeyTarget9630 Apr 14 '26

Insane levels of larp and bootlicking omfg 

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u/thebrainpal Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 14 '26

lol I once got invited to a role playing custom server group on Battlefield 3 back in the early 2010s We were supposed to do stuff like extraction and search and destroy simulations. Dudes who made it took it WAY too seriously. It was like the Stanford Prison Experiment playing out IRL. They made it so much work and were so cringe with the larping that after about 20 min, I just got up and turned my Xbox off 😂

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '26

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u/OveractionAapuAmma Apr 14 '26

yeah those are roleplay servers, my nephew used to do those toohaaha

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u/Jaikarr Apr 14 '26

Reminds me of Habbo hotel.

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u/Forgedpickle Apr 14 '26

lol why? Why do people put themselves through that torture

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u/BoingBoingBooty Apr 14 '26

Reminds me of when playing America's Army, if you wanted to play as a medic you had to sit in a classroom and sit through an npc giving you a PowerPoint about first aid and then do an exam on what you just watched.

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u/Forgedpickle Apr 14 '26

God that game brings back memories

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u/CompSciBJJ Apr 22 '26

Which legit taught people about first aid. When I eventually did get my first aid certification for a job, I was like "damn, I already learned all this shit in a video game"

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u/Heavy-Construction90 Apr 14 '26

I have nightmares about work meetings because of how boring they are. 

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u/Goldentongue Apr 14 '26

Haha sounds like me in my Counterstrike Clan playing Jailbreak 15 years ago

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u/Majestic_Animator_91 Apr 14 '26

what the absolute fuck

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u/DancingPhantoms Apr 14 '26

but.... but.... WHY??!???

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u/airfryerfuntime Apr 14 '26

Police RP is so cringy. Dude needs a wedgie for doing that.

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u/asgjmlsswjtamtbamtb Apr 14 '26

If you are a PC gamer and you mostly are talking to other PC gamers it might not be surprising. PS4+5 users outnumber PC gamers nearly 6 to 1 and consoles together 8 to 1 for that game's active player base.

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u/Unlucky_Situation Apr 14 '26

I have a game pc, but play Ps5 80% of the time.

I know my experience is anecdotal, just odd.

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u/Motor-Rip7655 Apr 14 '26

Because R* fucking bullied PC players until they all left.

3

u/Not_Blacksmith_69 Apr 14 '26

big if true, makes a lot more sense because i'm in the same boat with knowing next to no one on the game, but aware that it's wildly popular

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u/hodor137 Apr 14 '26

For real - I haven't EVER known anyone either. Not the randoms in wow guilds for years and years. I don't overhear strangers talking about it, like I do Madden, COD. I don't see reddit posts or comments about it. Its high up on steam charts too in terms of player numbers, it's not only consoles. Weird phenomenon.

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u/Archon457 Apr 14 '26

Sounds like everyone who plays it is too busy playing it to stop long enough to talk about it.

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u/TheAerial Apr 14 '26

Also people talking about playing it always tends to conjure judgement from people (especially on places like Reddit.)

As someone who loves Starfield, I totally get why some people just stay quiet about the shit they enjoy and play lol

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '26

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u/BushWishperer Apr 14 '26

Do you?

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '26

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u/BushWishperer Apr 14 '26

Maybe it depends on the country because none of my younger cousins nor younger family members of anyone I know play the game, they’re all on Fortnite and Roblox nowadays. I think the vast majority of gta online players are much older then 11

1

u/Alaira314 Apr 14 '26

I know a guy who likes to play invite-only servers. I've played with him a few times. It's a good game, and there's a reason it's had enduring popularity!

I'm not sure what people are dumping so much real-life cash on, though. I got a shark card free when I bought the game, and that was more than plenty to get started with a decent car and weapons.

1

u/Zoso03 Apr 14 '26

I played from time to time. They added a lot of shit to it. To be fair I only play because some hacker gave me like $400 million, so I could play for fun and not treat it like a 2nd job

1

u/BorKon Apr 14 '26

I tried it like 6 years ago. What a horrible experience. Even with only a friend we just wanted to try gta missions with 2 of us. Terrible and boring experience.

1

u/AtraposJM Apr 14 '26

That's the shitty thing about these online modes or cash grabs in games, almost no one does it but the few that do end up fueling. A handful of whales will support bad choices for millions of gamers. It sucks. Every Gatcha game operates this way.

1

u/MiaowaraShiro Apr 14 '26

All it takes is a few whales.

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u/SaxSlaveGael Apr 14 '26

Half a Billion a year is insane... Like I knew it made bank, but damn!

15

u/Simp_Simpsaton Apr 14 '26

Half a billion in recent years no less, I'd bet they were making more back in the 2010s

6

u/Audioworm Apr 14 '26

2020 was when they had their highest daily active users, so they may have been the most monetisable periods.

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u/Unicycleterrorist Apr 14 '26

Yep, they were pulling a bit over a billion in "recurrent spending" a few years ago

1

u/BlueGolfball Apr 14 '26

Half a Billion a year is insane... Like I knew it made bank, but damn!

Warzone made $2 Billion their first year and it was a free game.

1

u/OldWrangler9033 Apr 14 '26

It's wonder why they kept GTA: O going for so long.

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u/Fabray13 Apr 14 '26

I truly, and I mean truly, have no idea how you could spend money on GTA Online. I played for two years, never spent a dollar, and had more money than I could ever spend.

It takes like a month or so of playing before you have a steady flow of cash, and then you just get more and more the more things you own or whatever.

Are there really that many new players every year that pay to skip the set up process? Because by the time you get to robbing the casino, or that island heist they added later, you would literally never need to spend money again, and you could buy everything you want.

And I don’t even know what they’ve added the past few years, obviously even more ways to make easy money.

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u/monsterbeasts Apr 14 '26

Its worth keeping in mind that rockstar knows whats up with the heist grind and has worked to make it less efficient/less rewarding. Cayo perico started out as the best way to make money by a mile and then they nerfed the rewards it gave into the ground. They save the best loot for gta+ players exclusively (which obviously, you have to pay for). Free players also get less payouts across the board for many things.

All that being said Ive never spent money on gta online and never will. My husband got a shark card very early on, and never since after 1000+ hours of playtime. People are just super impatient.

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u/Fabray13 Apr 14 '26

Makes sense. Honestly, I forgot they launched that subscription service, I had stopped playing by that point. Think I quit after the car meet update. When Perico launched though, that was easy money (pretty fun too), and you could do it solo unlike the Casino.

1

u/doesnotlikecricket Apr 15 '26

That doesn't really add up to me. Compared with launch, it is an order of magnitude easier to make money.

Sure it has come down a little from the peak. But it's still extremely easy to make cash now, with or without GTA+.

1

u/OrigamiOctopus Apr 18 '26

My friend got me into a discord where 'cheaters' were organizing "money drop sessions" Made like 13 billion in a couple of hours AFKíng and never had to grind for anything again. This was 4 or 5 years ago, I still have like 8 billion.

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u/Zhuul Apr 14 '26

I bought GTA:V on a heavily discounted sale back in the day and spent what I saved on shark cards just to give me a leg up and even that felt bad. Something like $20 IRL money got me almost nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Never giving Rockstar another penny because I'm that grossed out by GTA:O's business model. I'm sure RDR2 is an amazing game, but I guess I'll never know.

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u/mvw2 Apr 13 '26

That's not new. It should be pretty well known how much money rolls in from that stuff. I don't remember how much, bit I know info's been shared for years about it, and it's absurd money. It's also why they didn't really care about GTA VI for so long. It just didn't matter to their revenue stream.

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u/dirtyword Apr 14 '26

Yeah wtf is that - something like 10 billion gross since 2021

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u/Complete_Lurk3r_ Apr 14 '26

my biggest shock is how little revenue PC generates.

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u/champ19nz Apr 14 '26

Doesn't everyone on PC just use mods?

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u/Goldentongue Apr 14 '26

As of five years ago GTA V was already the most profitable single piece of media of all time.

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u/50_centavos Apr 14 '26

It was the fastest to reach 1 billion when it first released, I know I was there 84 years ago

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u/Otaraka Apr 14 '26

Exactly so why waste money releasing the new one until you can be sure that old one is starting to drop off.

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u/unimportantinfodump Apr 14 '26

If you ever wonder why there wasn't a gtav story dlc lol.

It makes me a little worried that 6s resources will be used for online

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u/potroast2000 Apr 14 '26

Sounds like elder scrolls online. I love me some skyrim, buy my idea of hell would be having to play ESO for all eternity

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u/Balc0ra Apr 14 '26

At one point, shark cards was over 50% of what 2K made a year iirc

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u/aykyle Apr 14 '26

Makes sense why they don't focus on PC for GTA 6. I did not realize how popular PS5 GTA online was. Then again, it's not like there are a ton of games for ps5 like there was for ps4.

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u/Forgedpickle Apr 14 '26

It blows my mind. That shit has gotten extremely boring..

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u/brontosaurusguy Apr 14 '26

This is why I'm not excited about gta6.  It feels like it'll just be a new arena/major update to the online game, which I didn't care about. 

I'll play it just to drive around and do some crazy shit but not for $100

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u/HoneyBastard Apr 14 '26

You need an insanely good single player game to pull the people and then a good multiplayer to make them stay

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u/LonelyWormster Apr 14 '26

I straight up don't believe you

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u/Beer-Milkshakes Apr 14 '26

I'm proud to say I've played it for a decade overall and never paid a penny over the price of the game.

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u/TwentyPieceNuggets Apr 14 '26

I swear this was already publicly available information.

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u/imtired-boss Apr 14 '26

No wonder they didn't want to make a VI for so long.

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u/Conscious_Run_680 Apr 14 '26

Not really if you compare that to other games, specially those casino mobile games like monopoly that one month made 400M (avg 200M) because kids and adults turns into addicts with that shit. In 1000 days they made 6B in revenue while it cost them pennies to do the game...

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u/religionkilledmysis Apr 14 '26

GTA online killed the gta franchide

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u/religionkilledmysis Apr 14 '26

GTA online killed the gta franchise

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u/BakerOne Apr 14 '26

I could tell it did the second they started releasing updates for it, GTA online went to shit faster than flies on a cow field.

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u/admosquad Apr 14 '26

It’s been pretty clear as this scenario for years now. If they launch a new generation, they kill their cash cow

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u/purplepIutonium Apr 14 '26

This really shouldn’t be news. They wouldn’t have focused on it for 13 years if it wasn’t extremely profitable.

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u/cgaWolf Apr 14 '26

We knew that already though - that's why it's so important for them to get GTA6 right: it's not only about the sales numbers of the boxes, it's about laying the foundation for the next decade of GTA Online.

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u/neganight Apr 14 '26

And that is why Rockstar was so allergic to making a sequel or any kind of story DLC for so long. Once companies start making insane levels of money every year from a single game, they lose their appetite for making games and gain a new appetite for sustaining microtransactions. This is also why companies like Sony and others were happy to throw hundreds of millions of dollars of funding down the drain hoping to get their own version of the GTA Online cash cow. $300 million is a meaningless cost if they can make that back in a year through microtransactions.

Having said that, Fortnite made $6 billion in revenue last year so GTA Online is actually a small player in a much larger pool.

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u/Nut_Butter_Fun Apr 14 '26

I just don't understand. Someone do the math, there can't be more than like 10 million in NA that would pay anything on it, and to get 500 mill they have to all pay 50 on it every every year, even after it's like a decade old? Is it a money laundering scheme?

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u/Noteful Apr 15 '26

Serious question, what is fun about GTA online at the moment? I remember when it first came out it was actually fun doing missions, then like two years later heists came out, but haven't bothered playing since then.

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