Yesterday was earnings day not just for Activision Blizzard but for Take-Two as well, whose highlight was, once again, GTA 5.
That’s right. The game will be ten years old later this year and yet it continues to grow its player base. According to an updated slide provided by Take-Two, GTA 5 sold another five million units in the last quarter, moving from 170 million to 175 million lifetime sales. It is the best-selling game of the past decade in the United States in both unit and dollar sales, though we already knew that.
GTA 5 helped the Grand Theft Auto franchise reach another impressive milestone. Considering all of the GTA games released so far, total sales have jumped from 385 million to 395 million in the last quarter. That implies the other installments have sold around five million units, likely led by Grand Theft Auto Trilogy – The Definitive Edition.
While GTA 5 and its online component remain Take-Two’s golden goose, another Rockstar game continues to sell well. Red Dead Redemption 2 has now sold 50 million units to date, up four million from last quarter. Of course, its online wasn’t nearly as successful as GTA Online and is essential in maintenance mode now.
On the downside, Marvel’s Midnight Suns by Firaxis turned out to be a commercial flop (despite being a critical darling), according to Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, who admitted as much to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier. Zelnick did express hope the game would have long legs like other titles made by Firaxis. There is a whole Season Pass worth of content planned, of which only the first DLC, focused on Deadpool, has been released.
Overall, Take-Two reported slightly lower net bookings than forecasted, with CEO Strauss Zelnick chalking it up to a ‘challenging environment’. Indeed, 2022 turned out to be challenging for several companies in the gaming industry as the whole market had to adjust after two amazing years driven by the pandemic. Worryingly, though, the report also alludes to a cost-reduction program that Take-Two promises will deliver $50 million in annual savings; no further specifics were provided, but it certainly sounds like incoming layoffs.
