Despite all of the success Marvel and Star Wars have had at the box office, no single film in either franchise - or any other individual movie ever released for that matter - has come close to generating the type of profits as Rockstar Games'
Grand Theft Auto V. A
new report from MarketWatch points out that since its release in 2013,
GTA V has made more money than any movie ever. And although the report primarily focuses on comparison with film, it almost certainly encompasses all forms of entertainment.
To date, the third-person crime thriller - which released all the way back in 2013 - has sold an astounding 90 million units across Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, and PS4. On a reported budget of $265 million,
Grand Theft Auto V profited in just its first week and has since gone on to generate around $6 billion in revenue for publisher Take-Two. Even when adjusted for inflation, this is far above the financial success of blockbuster movies like
Star Wars and
Gone with the Wind, which have each collected around $4 billion. Even James Cameron's
Avatar, which is the highest grossing movie of all time when unadjusted for inflation, pales in comparison with $2.8 billion. Marvel's
Black Panther and Lucasfilm's
Star Wars: The Last Jedi are two of Hollywood's most recent box office successes - each hauling in around $1.3 billion worldwide - and neither come close to
GTA V's revenues.
“Video games are a much better business than [movie] studios,” said KeyBanc analyst Evan Wingren said when speaking to MarketWatch. “Games in general have the enviable position that their content is interactive, which allows them to make data-driven insights and adjust games and business models that benefit players and the company.”
Part of what has helped GTA V's longevity is its online multiplayer mode, GTA Online. This mode has allowed players to not only continue playing the game well beyond its release, but continue to spend money on it through in-game microtransactions which have undoubtedly helped boost the game's overall revenue. MarketWatch specify if Grand Theft Auto V's total is based purely on units sold, or if it also includes revenues generated from its highly successful multiplayer mode.
Despite the success of Grand Theft Auto V though, Cowen analyst Doug Creutz believes it's an outlier as no other game has event gotten close to matching these numbers. Even Black Ops, one of the best selling games in Activision's Call of Duty series - widely regarded as one of the most popular video game franchises - has only sold 24.2 million copies. Nintendo's Mario franchise has technically sold more units in total than GTA V, but no single Mario game has come close to collecting $6 billion on its own.
"I think it's a wild outlier," Cowen analyst Doug Creutz said. "I think maybe with the exception something Nintendo has made - but aside from that there's never been a console game that's sold so many units."
It's worth mentioning that Rockstar Games does have another highly anticipated game, Red Dead Redemption 2, coming out later this year, but analysts don't expect it to come close to GTA V's success.
"That's not to say Rockstar won't have other big hits - it may - but another 'GTA V' isnt likely," Creutz said "Michael Jackson had a lot of hit albums but he only had one 'Thriller.'"