Summary
- Grand Theft Auto 6’s release is expected to be among the biggest-ever launches in entertainment.
- Financial experts predict over $3 billion in revenue within a year of GTA 6’s release.
- We’ve received little information on what to expect from Rockstar’s newest game.
It’s only the beginning of 2025, but there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind what the biggest launch of the year is going to be. Grand Theft Auto 6‘s planned release in Autumn is so anticipated that other publishers and developers are reportedly avoiding scheduling releases in this period. Of course, Rockstar has a well-documented history of delays so there’s no guarantee GTA 6 will release this year.
However, regardless of when Grand Theft Auto 6 is released, you can almost guarantee that it’s going to make a lot of money. According to reporting from the Financial Times, the next instalment in Rockstar’s action-adventure series is predicted to generate $3.2 billion in its first year. Furthermore, pre-orders of GTA 6 are expected to exceed $1 billion in value.
The Biggest Launch Ever
This information is courtesy of DFC Intelligence, a video game market research group. Grand Theft Auto 5 is the second-best-selling game of all time (after Minecraft), and these projections expect Grand Theft Auto 6 to generate double what its predecessor did in their respective first years. That’s no small feat, and it reflects just how much the hype around GTA 6 has grown over the past decade.
IDG Consulting, another gaming-focused market research group, told the Financial Times: “We think it’s going to be one of the biggest entertainment launches in history, not just in games but for all of media. The pent-up demand is greater than anything we’ve seen before.” While there are a few live-service games like Fortnite and World of Warcraft that have earned billions over their entire lifespans, GTA 6 is set to generate billions immediately, something that’s unprecedented in gaming.
It’s difficult to compare performance across mediums because the revenue trajectories of different entertainment products behave differently, and metrics are tracked differently. However, the biggest opening in film history, Avengers: Endgame, grossed $1.2 billion. That’s just the opening weekend, rather than an entire opening year.
We’ve heard little about Grand Theft Auto 6 since the release of its first trailer in December 2023, but that hasn’t stopped fans from devising far-fetched theories as to when we’re going to see something new from Rockstar.
Grand Theft Auto 6 is an upcoming title in the long-running series from Rockstar Games. Currently scheduled for a 2025 launch, details are few, although it appears to focus on a Bonnie-and-Clyde-like pair of characters.