The Grand Theft Auto video game franchise developed by Rockstar Games is one of the most successful in the industry. Its latest installment, Grand Theft Auto V, released in September 2013, also comes in second on the list of the estimated best-selling games of all time. As of November 2023, the game sold 190 million copies, according to company filings. Only the open-world game Minecraft, developed by Mojang, which Microsoft now owns, achieved better sales numbers than GTA V.
With the hype cycle for the series' next installment, Grand Theft Auto VI, in full swing thanks to the first official trailer dropping earlier this week, Rockstar's parent company Take-Two Interactive can probably bank on GTA VI becoming another hit — with critics and its shareholders.
Our chart shows that ever since the release of GTA V, the series, which includes the immensely lucrative quasi-MMO Grand Theft Auto Online, was responsible for a sizable chunk of the company's revenue year after year. For example, between April 2013 and March 2014, GTA V had a total revenue share of 69 percent, even though it was released at the end of Take-Two's fiscal Q2. In the following years, the Grand Theft Auto franchise contributed between one quarter and half of the overall revenue of Take-Two, with one notable exception.
The company's fiscal year 2023 saw GTA's revenue share drop to only 15 percent. This sudden decrease can easily be explained, though. In May 2022, Take-Two Interactive acquired mobile game developer Zynga for $12.7 billion. The acquisition netted the parent company around $2.1 billion in revenue for the remainder of its fiscal year. To put this into perspective: Take-Two's total revenue stood at $5.3 billion for the period between April 2022 and March 2023, accompanied by a net loss due to the Zynga acquisition of $1.1 billion.
