Rockstar hasn’t made any single player DLC for Grand Theft Auto V, and this long after the game’s release, it will probably never happen. One reason why? The game’s publisher, Take-Two Interactive, keeps bragging about how much money Grand Theft Auto Online is making.
Take-Two recently held its quarterly financial call, where it talked a big game about how well GTA Online is doing:
- During the holidays, it had “best week ever for both revenues and active players during this holiday season”. (In other words, lots of people played it and bought microtransactions.)
- They’re predicting GTA Online will make more money in the coming year.
While they refused to elaborate on exactly how much money is being generated by GTA Online, we can grab some hints, based on what Take-Two said here:
Starting with our results for the fiscal third quarter, net revenue was $486.8 million as compared to $954 million in last year’s third quarter, which had benefited from a more extensive release slate. This result exceeded our outlook range of $400 million to $450 million due primarily to stronger than expected revenues from Grand Theft Auto V and Grand Theft Auto Online. In addition, NBA 2K16 exceeded our expectations.
It wouldn’t be a surprise if GTA Online was making hundreds of millions of dollars, which miiiiiiiiiight explain why they dropped single player DLC.
Gaming analyst Michael Pachter, whom some Kotaku readers might be familiar with, apologised for questioning Take-Two’s DLC strategy in an analyst note. Pachter now predicts Take-Two could be making $US250 million a year off it:
…the fervor with which players have embraced GTA Online suggests that it can deliver $250 million per year for several more years. Should Take-Two decide to make the game free-to-play for players who have NOT purchased the underlying console game, it is likely that overall revenues could double, and could be sustained for a very long time. Accordingly, we apologise for questioning management’s strategy, and we see merit in the pursuit of an online strategy.
I’ve never touched GTA Online, but apparently, lots and lots of other people have.
Comments
26 responses to “No Wonder GTA V Hasn’t Gotten Any Single Player DLC Yet”
So, same reason why Half-Life 3 hasn’t been released.
Pretty much. Why make a game that can only be bought once per user?
Valves sole business is Steam, they develop online games to sell more stuff on Steam, and they only developing VR so they can sell VR in Steam. With a recent developer quoted as saying 75% of a game budget is asingle pkayer campaign with a short playtime and limited replayability its cheaper and profitable to go multiplayer. Only way we get HL3 is if they use it for advancing VR sales or license it off.
Counter Strike is Valves money maker also. Those skins, crates and keys are like slot machines to people..
Fuck GTA online. GTA is a single player experience at heart and that game is dead to me and many millions of other people until it has a single player expansion. Im sure there’s millions that dont care about the single player but that’s what GTA is, not some online dick fest.
true, ive tried GTA online once and it never started, it kept sending me to singleplayer because the game couldnt make the connection to the server for some reason.
Hahahaha true. Love the vitriol. The SP was utterly boss. GTA Online is just a hollow extension of that.
Agreed, tried it a bunch and it was cool but lacks all the depth and feel of a proper GTA experience.
Obviously not going by those figures! The online is still massively popular, still heaps of people playing whenever I jump on.
Do agree though, i’d much rather SP DLC over any online component. Love the online, but I’d happily trade it in for some more SP
Hell yeah!
Also, I enjoyed GTA IV’s expansions (Lost & the Damned, Ballad of Gay Tony) more than the actual game’s main story, and I was really hoping to see single player DLC of that quality again for GTA V.
I understand the economics behind it but as a gamer who doesn’t do multiplayer this is a terrible trend.
cant you deal with how bad you suck against other players?
Not sure why Pachter feels he/his outfit really need to apologise to Take-Two. His paying clients would want him being robust about this stuff, not feebly proffering up flowers and chocolates for each bad call.
It doesn’t say who the apology is to. That could be to his paying clients who decided not to invest in take-two on his advice that it was a bad business plan. Saying oops I was wrong in that case would be warranted.
Gta 5 was certainly impressive but I completed it once and never touched it again tbh. I dunno I guess I prefer games with more fantastical subject matter, and Gta online was just Meh to me. Clearly I’m in the minority here with all that cash they continue to make however.
Regularly go into gtao it’s a whole lot of fun to screw around in it, specially with people you know.
Does this mean GTA VI will be an online only campaign?
I gave you an impromptu “pfft” when I first read this comment (sorry), but I immediately realised that this is actually a very real and terrifying possibility. God help us.
I’ve had some of the most fun both last and current gen in GTA online. My mates and I aren’t too serious about being pro at it, we just have a good time and screw around. The heists have added even more fun to it, our bumbling crime outfit is finally up to the last one!
Rockstar and Taketwo are complete sellouts. The money went to their head, period. People who continue to buy Shark cards amd play online are the reason Rockstar has become so arrogant. I used to respect them as a developer, but after they began deliberately leaving vehicles, features, missions etc out of SP in an attempt to get people to play online and buy their lousy shark cards, I lost all respect for them. They simply don’t care and sold their Soul to the devil like so many other developers. (Obsessively pandering to MP only and using micro transactions).
For the first time since GTA2, I honestly won’t be buying the next GTA. I’m not angry at them, just very disappointed in what they’ve become.
You know you earn a fair bit just playing the online missions and that you do not need to even go near a ‘shark card’?
Not once in 18 months have i spent more than the original $64 and i’ve clocked several hundreds of hours.
Unlike that piece of shit battlefront that cost me 88 and lasted 3.5 hours.
Absolutely love GTA Online, and it’s the only game I’ve used real money to buy in-game currency. Working at a games store, we still sell a tonne of Shark Cards, and every time I jump back into Online, I feel the urge to do the same.
The high selling Shark Cards are also probably a result of the increased price of items in the game itself. With $8 million luxury yachts, it would take a longgggggg time to get that cash without buying currency. A long time.
not that long.
I’m level 86 and managed to earn close to 14 million so far.
Thats with being a tad frugal, not buying every car available.
But a Kuruma, Tank and Buzzard with about 20 other hotted up vehicles and two apartments.
Stick to the daily objectives – 25k a night
weekly gives 100k
monthly is 500k
Equates to 1.6m per month playing for 30 mins a night.
Thats is if you only do the daily objectives.
doesnt account for heist, races, missions, killing others.
I blow up every personal vehicle, the most it costs is 10k a go depending if it was a zentorno or something.
I hated GTAO when i dropped, thought it was an absolute joke.
It has to be one of the best games out there nowadays for a jump in, go crazy, have fun, walk away.
I used to play it a lot more than I do now. Currently at 107 and only log on mostly when an update drops some new stuff. Easily my favourite online game despite leaving it alone for months at a time!
How awesome.. Thanks Rockstar & Take Two. The GTA franchise has always been my favourite single player game series, which I lost thousands of hours to. Now I guess it looks like it’s going to only be multi-player driven from here on in for the next GTA. What a shame.
In the end, it’s all about the Benjamin’s
New Red Dead please. We are almost 6 ARDR. When will my messiah rise again?
I’d gladly pay good money for some decent single-player dlc. Online freemode can be alot of fun, but the triggerhappy lifestyle gets quite expensive after a while. Earning substantial amounts of online currency nowadays can be very time consuming and repetitive, tempting casual players into buying shark cards. Some of the online Contact missions weren’t available anymore at one point (American Exports, A Boat In The Bay,…) or payouts have been significally reduced over time. Completing the Criminal Mastermind heist challenge was good fun but requires a solid, dedicated crew to rake in the 10 mil. I’m set up with a yacht, 5 high-end properties, 50 fully modded cars, all of the the military Pegasus vehicles (the ‘Bob’ as well) and 13 mil. in the bank. Never purchased a shark cards or cheated.