“GTA VI will sell 38 million copies in its first year”

The video game GTA VI sold 38 million copies in its first year of release. This is what Joost van Dreunen, a video game market analyst who is also an associate professor at New York University, predicts. This week, developer Rockstar Games presented the first trailer for the long-awaited game, which will be released in 2025.

Van Dreunen bases his predictions on simple math: “If you look at the number of people who have a Playstation 5 and the percentage of them who have actually played GTA, which is about 20 to 25 percent, it quickly reaches 30 million copies.” In digital BNR.

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A number he later modified slightly upward: based on installbase, which is the number of users who have already purchased previous versions of GTA, and Van Dreunen expects that the game will be sold 38 million times in the first year after release. “That’s too much for a title like this.”

Decide for yourself

The sixth version of Grand Theft Auto was highly anticipated: the previous version had been released ten years earlier. GTA is considered one of the most famous computer games in the world. The first game was released in 1997.

Van Dreunen attributes the game’s success mainly to the fact that players can decide for themselves what they want to do in the game, especially where. “In traditional games, you can often only do one thing. Let’s take Mario for example: you can just go from point A to point B, and there’s the princess and that’s how you win the game. In GTA, you as a player can decide for yourself what You do it in an open world. It’s a completely different experience, and I think it’s proven to be very interesting for a lot of players.

good news

The market analyst says the game’s announcement is also good news for other branches of the gaming industry. Sometimes the appearance of such a major post tempts gamers to buy a new gaming console.

“The success of a title like this shows that we as an industry are not just engaging with platforms, but also with publishers. This is important for the diversity and economic health of this industry.”

Cash

The GTA has never been exempt from criticism over the years. The game is said to be violent and full of profanity. However, those who know the game would do well to look further, says Van Dreunen, who points out that the game is full of social criticism. “There is a certain criticism regarding the community in that game. They target a lot of things.

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Moreover, developers are not ignoring social developments, he adds. “They’re always adapting. GTA V, the last release, had three female characters, all from different socio-economic backgrounds. The game’s makers are showing they’re thinking about community representation in the game,” says Van Dreunen. “Now they’re doing it again, with a female lead.”

In the new game, a woman and a man play the lead roles together. The story takes place in a fictional city based on the city of Miami. Rockstar Games, part of Take-Two Interactive Software, has not announced a specific release date.