Grand Theft Auto V Earns $800 Million in a Day

http://variety.com/2013/digital/news/grand-theft-auto-v-earns-800-million-in-a-day-more-than-worldwide-haul-of-man-of-steel-1200616706/

by adventured • 13 years ago

191 172 13 years ago

variety.com

narfquat• 13 years ago

To put that in perspective, here is a list of opening day top grossing movies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_openin..., and the previous video game record was $500 million, for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.

Blara• 13 years ago

I'm not sure that is a fair comparison, Movies have a very strict number of people who can see the movie the first weekend (seats in movie theaters and not opening around the world, though the highest movie in the list was harry potter which I think had "world premier"). Where games have no limit on how many can buy it the first day, which is especially true since digital download has become so popular.

skeletonjelly3• 13 years ago

It might not be fair but it's a comparison you'll have to get used to. What's not fair is the way that movie profits are reported. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting

Shorel3• 13 years ago

With lots of people with huge TVs, with a substantial portion of them capable of 3D, they could stream the movie via Netflix as well.

Digital download is the future. They have chosen to ignore it at their own peril.

vijayboyapati• 13 years ago

There goes my productivity for the next month

erichurkman• 13 years ago

If you're like some of my friends, your productivity has been shot for months leading into the release, endlessly looking at the latest screen shots, articles, teasers, pre-pre-reviews, ... They had a very effective marketing effort.

adamnemecek2• 13 years ago

Kind of surprised that marketing cost them more than development ($115m vs $150m).

jevinskie• 13 years ago

$115 million? Wow. How many developers/artists/QA/management folks (or man-hours) does that buy you?

danielharan• 13 years ago

Roughly 1000 person years at 115k/person/year?

jlgreco• 13 years ago

That money bought them things like this: http://static.trustedreviews.com/94/000028992/826f/GTA-5-mur...

(That is a massive painting on the side of a building, incase that isn't clear)

sgloutnikov• 13 years ago

"The game spent four years in full development, by a team of an estimated 250 people. Media analyst Arvind Bhatia estimated the development budget for the game exceeded US$137 million, and The Scotsman reporter Marty McLaughlin estimated that the combined budget of the development and marketing efforts exceeded £170 million (US$265 million), which would make Grand Theft Auto V the most expensive video game ever made."

dested• 13 years ago

From the wiki, 137 million to develop for four years with roughly 250 people (137000000/4/250) = 137k a year average per person

roel_v• 13 years ago

Question is, would it have made the game better? Or would it have been the same game with more content (so that you could hunt 1000 different animals instead of 50 (just throwing out number, I don't know the actuals)) but which nobody knew about?

dualogy• 13 years ago

Often missed is the massive amount of motion-captured acting and voice acting in that game. How many voice actors just for random peds, hundreds?

Another big-ticket budget item is clearly music licensing and celebrity involvement for major-character voice acting (like GTA:SA had Samuel L. Jackson in a major role for example and some old-school rap celebs for "radio moderator" talking).

NicoJuicy• 13 years ago

Not only celebs, Soulwax a belgian music group created their own Radio Station on GTA V...

fhd2• 13 years ago

Kind of surprised that marketing cost them more than development ($115m vs $150m).

Kinda depressing, considering how game developers are typically underpaid and overworked... But as long as people are willing to put up with it, it's going to continue.

skeletonjelly3• 13 years ago

Depressing? What would have been more depressing is that they might not have received a bonus had there been no marketing and the game didn't meet budget.

golergka5• 13 years ago

game developers are typically underpaid and overworked

And marketing people aren't?

I'm a game developer, and it depresses me how much undeserved hatred and contempt "suits" get form us "technical" guys. We work hard to make something, and they work hard to get it to the people. If you don't like the idea that games like GTAV should be advertised in order to get the money they deserve (and I think no one here disagrees that GTAV deserves it), you should be disappointed with the audience who wouldn't notice it if not for a marketing budget.

maximilianburke• 13 years ago

Marketing has been a larger cost than development for quite some time now in the world of AAA video games.

sspiff4• 13 years ago

Exactly. I remember a greater inbalance in the Call of Duty series, where marketing dwarfed development. I can't seem to find the source though.

jemeshsu• 13 years ago

Watched Riddick in cinema last night and there was an ads for Grand Theft Auto V. It is rare to see computer game ads in theatre.

CWIZO• 13 years ago

Here in London they show at least one ad for a game before the movie. London is also littered with billboards for this and other games...

hbbio2• 13 years ago

My first internship was at a very successful (non-tech) company. One the things I learned there is how R&D costs were 2% of revenue, while marketing... 50%. And we're talking billions here.

hbbio2• 13 years ago

I remember my first internship at a famous company. The first thing they told us was R&D was 2% of revenue. Marketing 50%. And we're talking billions here.

jessaustin3• 13 years ago

Kind of surprised...

Congratulations sir. You must not watch much TV. It's understandable if they have commercials on all the sports, but I don't even watch much sports and I feel like I've seen the GTA-V spot a hundred times.

kin• 13 years ago

glad to see main stream articles discussing the Rockstar's industry feat vs. content controversy

grannyg00se• 13 years ago

That official gameplay video is really impressive if you haven't looked at the state of the art in video games lately. It looks like a wish list of gaming features put together by hardcore fans with no limits on budget or creativity.

If I didn't know the game was released and well received, I'd say there's no way in hell it would be possible to put it all together on time, on budget, and without major flaws. Damn impressive.

sspiff4• 13 years ago

I don't know about Rockstar, but from what I've heard from game developers from big studios, they're driven like slaves. Crunch time, unpaid overtime, wages that are not paid on time, etc etc.

It's easier to be on time and on budget if you break rules like 8 hour days and proper remuneration of the workforce.

joering2• 13 years ago

Yes, but much harder to create such a strong brand that people are actually willing to be "ripped off" of time and wages.

I cannot comment on quality of work for Rockstar tho.

product50• 13 years ago

If you don't know about Rockstar then don't comment. This is a great game and it really appears that the developers have put their everything in building it. Sometimes people want to work hard to make sure their output is a success. It is not always about 40hrs work week. A great company is one which creates a culture to build impressive products and where employees feel motivated to be a part of it. I am not saying that Rockstar employees worked more than 40hrs/week (I have no idea) but if I were a Rockstar employee I would be damn proud of the output.

Wingman4l7• 13 years ago

I don't know if this is actual industry lingo, but Penny Arcade has stories of "the trenches" to accompany its sister comic: http://trenchescomic.com/

Suffice to say that after reading those stories I'm never touching a QA/tester game industry job with a 10-foot pole.

InclinedPlane3• 13 years ago

Slaves is probably not the right word, though working conditions in the game industry are on average pretty brutal. However, a big reason why they are is because there is such a huge pool of 20-something devs out there who are eagerly lined up to jump into gamedev. And it usually takes several years of living in that meat grinder for the scales to fall away from peoples' eyes, but even then as they leave there are plenty more lined up to take their place. From the perspective of management there's no problem at all, even though such working conditions actually cause a lot of fundamental issues in being able to successfully execute and continually losing the most senior and experienced devs as they get older and less tolerant of bullshit is kind of a big deal.

See also: silicon valley startup culture.

yeureka• 13 years ago

In the Edinburgh office wages are much lower than in equivalent positions outside games, and everyone is waiting for a bonus to compensate for the crunch they had to put in to finish the game. I hope they do get a big bonus, my friend is basically living to work, not the other way around.

InclinedPlane3• 13 years ago

Here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-xHcvug3WI

Anyone else notice the nod to Vangelis' Blade Runner theme in the first part?

DigitalSea2• 13 years ago

What is even more impressive about this figure is that it's just XBOX 360 and Playstation 3 sales. GTA V hasn't been announced for PC yet which is a severely underrated market when it comes to games I reckon. If GTA V launched with a PC version I think they would have eclipsed $1 billion in 24 hours, easily, if not 1.1.

I played this yesterday (I don't own a console) at a friends house and what they've been able to achieve on these consoles is impressive considering these consoles aren't next gen and are resource limited.

colmvp• 13 years ago

It seems like that happens at every end of every console's life. Last of Us, BioShock Infinite, and GTA V are three fantastic games to close out the PS3.

piggity• 13 years ago

I wonder if the developers get a real handle on the platform and squeezing the most out of it by the time it gets to EOL.

spottr• 13 years ago

Except Gran Turismo 6 (with completely rebuilt graphics and physics) is coming out this year. Metal Gear Solid V & Ground Zeroes are currently in development for the PS3, among other systems. Also we will still be getting multi-platform stuff for some time (Battlefield 4).

So it's too early to "close out the PS3" IMHO.

lmm• 13 years ago

Not just this generation either. I remember being amazed at Perfect Dark and Donkey Kong 64, or, going even further back, Chrono Trigger.

thejosh• 13 years ago

I played it on PS3, the only downside is the FPS drop that occurs when driving at fast speeds... which is a fair payoff for the impressive visuals they have managed to achieve.

robmcm5• 13 years ago

I wonder if they will/could just port to PS4 and up the textures, framerate, draw distance etc.

It could be that there is so much PS3 specific tricks in there it just wouldn't work.

MattBearman• 13 years ago

This is odd, as I haven't found this on the xbox 360 at all, and I was under the impression that the ps3 was more powerful.

cyanbane• 13 years ago

Not only PC, but I wonder if some people are waiting to see if this hits next gen consoles also.

podperson• 13 years ago

My guess is their business plan was -- get it out for the tail end of the current gen consoles, then rake in cash a second time on a remastered edition when the next gen consoles are out in significant numbers.

forrestthewoods• 13 years ago

Assuming every PC copy sold is digital at $60 a pop the 70% publisher cut would be $42. To generate an extra $300,000,000 in revenue on PC it'd have to sell 7 million copies. No game in the history of ever has sold that many copies on day one on PC. And they especially haven't done that when the game is releasing on consoles at the same time.

It will however eventually release on PC and generate a nice chunk of change over a few years at various price points.

InclinedPlane3• 13 years ago

Why are you comparing gross revenue to profit? It would only take 3.3 million pre-sales to make up the $200 million to get to $1 billion/day. Diablo 3 reached that many sales on day 1, for example. Moreover, we're not talking about any random game, we're talking about this very specific game, GTA V, which has smashed existing sales records.

petercooper• 13 years ago

No game in the history of ever has sold that many copies on day one on PC.

No game in the history of ever has sold as many copies on Xbox 360 or PS3 as GTA V just has either, no? ;-)

That said, I think I agree with the inferred point that simultaneous PC release wouldn't have had a huge impact on revenue.

yaeger• 13 years ago

You can only imagine what that game could look like if it were designed for PC and not decade old consoles with hardware that was mid-range when the consoles came out.

It sucks that every major game lately is just made for the lowest common denominator and then if we are lucky, we get a half assed PC port. Dear god what a mess GTA IV was and how many patches it took to actually get it to a workable state.

I still wait on a studio that actually takes enough pride in their work to develop something that really pushes the envelope of PC gaming. You could take that then and show even the "Next Gen" consoles what actually is possible nowadays if you don't go for the bargain basement.

jiggy20115• 13 years ago

You could if you target really high end PCs but a lot of the PC market is now laptops or people who don't want to upgrade every 6 months to a year.

KellanPea• 13 years ago

Xbox one may actually live up to this...we'll see

robmcm5• 13 years ago

Dear god what a mess GTA IV was and how many patches it took to actually get it to a workable state.

Could be the reason they don't, but I expect piracy is the main reason it's not on the PC yet.

You do often see tech demos of engines that show of what can be done, but you develop for the market, which is the same for most technology (cough Internet Explorer cough)

fmax302• 13 years ago

News flash , AAA companies don't like to do PC releases because of all the piracy. Hell Let me be honest , every GTA games i had played till San Andreas on the PC was a cracked version. It wasn't that i wanted to get a crack , but the thing was that there was no other option available where i live.

RyanMcGreal3• 13 years ago

It wasn't that i wanted to get a crack , but the thing was that there was no other option available where i live.

Which brings us back to: Piracy is a market failure, not a cultural failure.

talmand• 13 years ago

I'm failing to understand your point. Almost every version of GTA has been released on the PC. How was there no option where you lived? Are you meaning you couldn't purchase it at your local stores before mail-order was available?

DigitalSea2• 13 years ago

You do realise this argument is null and void? GTA V for XBOX 360 leaked onto torrent websites days before the game was even officially released. If this is the argument companies are using for delaying the release of PC games or not releasing them at all, I think that's weak.

Look at Watch Dogs. Another open world hacker-esque game and it's coming out on consoles and PC on the same date. Rockstar are a much bigger company with more resources and bigger budgets to develop for multi-platforms. They are a console oriented company, but I remember when GTA was much bigger on PC than any console back in the 1,2 and 3 days especially.

Well, put it this way. If there are plans for next gen, we'll definitely get a PC person as they are effectively the same in many ways.

Jagat• 13 years ago

Release it on PC and keep your finger crossed while a cracker team cracks the drm and releases it on a torrent site.

goldudu• 13 years ago

yeah and thats exactly the reason we all migrated to consoles, pc gaming age is over just b'cas of those crackers, the all industry is useless without online network mode games - so that games would not be cracked.

nonchalance• 13 years ago

I clearly posted this 7 hours too early: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/take-two-first-day-gta-v-sa... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6407415

cynest• 13 years ago

I wonder if COD:GHOSTS will beat this. From what I'm seeing, GTAV has a few advantages:

Non-yearly (or biyearly) release schedule for an extremely well-known franchise.

No outstanding publisher issues of note, especially gaffes related to gameplay "dumbing down"

A number of factors contributing to somewhat inflated review scores including normal reactions to AAA titles and the GTA series' tendency to hit the right buttons for reviews that doesn't necessarily reflect on gameplay

andyhmltn4• 13 years ago

From my own observations, GTA is an entirely different market. Sure everybody knows about CoD but in reality, not a lot of the people I know will buy the new one (and that can be backed up by looked at BO2 preorders vs Ghosts) but almost everyone I've spoken to either has GTA, is buying GTA or hasn't got the means to play it.

rjuyal• 13 years ago

And this game deserves it.

shire• 13 years ago

This game is just pure awesome. I think all this hype is largely due to the previous generation GTA games. I've played all the other ones. Favorites are Vice City and San Andreas. Previous versions definitely led the way for a great promotion and grand opening for this game. The game play is mind blowing.

I'm surprised the revenue surpassed Call Of Duty Black Ops 2 though that is one of the most popular games out now and sold out on just the pre-order.

mcantelon• 13 years ago

I was underwhelmed by GTA 4, because of the sluggishness (on PS3), but that's reportedly gone. One of the cooler things I've heard about GTA 5 is that they're, when online game play goes online (later this month), going to create in-game television by piping in other player's gameplay framed with newcaster narration.

bjornsing• 13 years ago

Sales != Earnings...

andyhmltn4• 13 years ago

But they directly correlate.

plq3• 13 years ago

I'm a big fan of the series, but I decided to sit this one out until a PS4 / GTA V bundle comes out -- The game doesn't seem to look any better than GTA IV on PS3 and I don't want to feel like I'm playing yet another GTA IV expansion pack for the coming years. (I just recently finished all three GTA IV story lines. I'm not a huge player anymore)

Another thing of note about why GTA IV looks so much better than GTA 3 is that GTAIV uses what's now called Euphoria from Natural Motion: http://www.naturalmotion.com/middleware/euphoria/ Its synthesized animation looks way more natural than the stitching together of hand-made animation and I'm actually surprised that it didn't take the character animation world by storm by now.

lotso• 13 years ago

Has GTA V been announced for PS4/Xbox One?

freehunter4• 13 years ago

I remember seeing on reddit yesterday a link with Rockstar saying they were not targeting the next-gen consoles with GTA V, and the speculation around that comment was that the game likely would not be released for those consoles.

andyhmltn4• 13 years ago

Out of interest: Have you played it? I thought the same looking at the gameplay videos etc but after actually playing it I can conclude that it's nothing like a GTA IV expansion pack.

I played GTA IV for about a week prior to getting this game on the same console/TV. I used to play it on a 12 inch SD screen so I thought it looked great but it's the first time I have played it on a 32" HD display and it looks pretty bad. The depth of field makes blurred regions look like a bad painting. It looks horrible. After playing GTA V for a few hours, the graphics are miles apart even if it's not entirely apparent at first :)

corresation• 13 years ago

"The game doesn't seem to look any better than GTA IV on PS3 and I don't want to feel like I'm playing yet another GTA IV expansion pack for the coming years."

Your judgment of the value of a game is purely how it looks? That sounds very destructively reductionist.

GTA V shares literally nothing with GTA IV -- different character, location, dynamics, physics, storyline, music, voice actors, etc, but because it's people and cars that makes it an expansion pack?

plq3• 13 years ago

GTA V shares literally nothing with GTA IV

So they threw GTA IV out and did everything from scratch? I very much doubt it.

That said, we're talking about GTA here, the game that outdid itself with every single iteration. Why should we expect any less this time? I want to see what they'll come up with now that they have the power of PS4 behind them.

Rockstar Games is famous for a reason.

TomGullen3• 13 years ago

Really want to buy GTA V, but I am just put off that it's on old consoles! I have a PS3, but I'd much rather wait for a PC release and have it looking as good as it can, and silky smooth.

Or am I being prejudiced? Does it run OK on a PS3?

monatron• 13 years ago

As it is a massive commercial product that is developed to run on PS3 and Xbox 360 I'm sure it runs "OK" on the PS3.

TomGullen3• 13 years ago

I generally find I'm perhaps more sensitive to lower frame rates than more casual gamers!

danielsamuels• 13 years ago

I had noticeable frame rate drops on PS3, but it's still an incredibly fun game to play. 8 hours in so far and a smile on my face the entire time,

iddqd• 13 years ago

I'm usually gaming on a 120hz monitor, and I'm actually having some problems playing GTA V due to the low frame rate. However, it's so much fun that I can't stop playing.

When the PC version comes I'll probably double dip.

fedvasu2• 13 years ago

Can anyone tell me how much did Batman Arkham Asylum, Injustice:Gods among us and Batman Arkham City made?(individually) I am asking this because I feel that DC puts their best creative writers behind games (Paul Dini for instance) instead of movies (forget TDK trilogy, that's Noolan empire). I wonder How much more Man Of Steel would have made if the plot was more cohesive and deeper.

Simple1234• 13 years ago

I hope they don't mess up the PC port on this one like they usually do.

skc• 13 years ago

One wonders, pundits say mobile is the new hotness in gaming and console are slowly becoming obsolete. Does that mean games as immersive and expansive as GTA5 will cease to exist in a few years?

clavalle• 13 years ago

No way.

There is only so much you can do on a small screen.

The form factor is well suited for a certain type of game.

It also limits the social aspect of gaming.

Expansive, visually stunning games built to be played on a large screen with other people in the room or playing multiplayer will be around for a very long time.

Mobile games have their place, but they are competing for an orthogonal piece of consumer time.

MLR• 13 years ago

People don't say this, or if they do they make the same mistake as when they say PC gaming is irrelevant.

They lump the whole of 'gaming' as one thing, not realising that a new market segment emerging doesn't cannibalise the old one.

mdotk• 13 years ago

It is the highest rated game ever on MetaCritic http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/grand-theft-auto-v

FYI if any of you play it and like cheat codes, here they are http://www.gta5cheats.com/

Grand Theft Auto V Earns $800 Million in a Day

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