Featured Image Credit: Rockstar Games
Some analytical predictions have suggested that GTA 6 made over $1 billion in sales within the first hour after pre-orders went live, representing unprecedented demand that's now been 13 years in the making.
Everyone knows that GTA 6 is going to sell well – which is why pretty much every other developer and publisher is steering clear of November to avoid a clash – but there's a chance that we're still not prepared for quite how popular the game will be at launch.
We're just over four months away from the game's launch and it looks almost guaranteed now that there won't be any more delays, leading many fans to feel confident in expressing interest with their wallet.
Despite significant controversy and backlash over the state of physical editions of the game, alongside the reveal of certain in-game content exclusive to the Ultimate Edition, GTA 6 has already broken records and perhaps even broke even against what is likely the biggest game development budget in history.
While it's impossible to know exactly how many people have pre-ordered GTA 6 so far, or how many copies that translates to, analysts can use the stock market value of Rockstar's parent company, Take-Two Interactive, as an indicator.
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Addressing the business side of Grand Theft Auto 6, Anthony Palomba, a professor at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business, revealed how certain models suggested up to $1 billion in revenue within the first hour of pre-orders.
"Take-Two shares rose almost 3% in early trading when pre-orders opened, and some analysts modeled as much as $1 billion in revenue in the first hour alone," Palomba explained.
"For a listed company, the pre-order window functions as an investor communication event as much as a sales channel."
The biggest jump, however, happened between the Friday close and the Monday open, with the value jumping from $239 per share to $248.56, with it now reaching above $250.
Investors were already high on Take-Two following the official reveal of GTA 6 – as the game's success is arguably more guaranteed than pretty much anything we've ever seen in the medium – but this sharp jump post pre-order is an indication that things are looking better than expected.
It's not hard to quantify the demand for Grand Theft Auto's latest instalment, but pre-orders help cement and guarantee that income for both Rockstar and Take-Two — especially with the latter hinging an unusually large proportion of its yearly revenue on a single release.
"For a title this certain, pre-orders are not a referendum on whether demand exists," Palomba illustrates. "They are an instrument for sizing and reducing the risk around demand that everyone knows is there."
Despite the majority of sales likely coming from digital storefronts – especially following the lack of a disc in the physical edition – pre-orders this far ahead of launch help Rockstar plan for a stable and sufficient launch.
"Pre-order velocity tells Rockstar how much to manufacture, how much download and server capacity to provision, and how aggressively to spend on marketing in the final weeks."
It's a good thing that players will be able to pre-load the game a week before release too, because servers would definitely crash if everyone had to jump on at the same time to try and download a game that's likely to be in the hundreds of gigabytes in size.
