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Grand Theft Auto V sales skyrocket after Epic Games Store giveaway

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Grand Theft Auto V is showing no signs of slowing down.

Take-Two Interactive Software, in its second quarter earnings statement Monday, said its mid-May promotion with the Epic Games Store, where the game was given away for free, actually resulted in a huge sales surge in the month-and-a-half that followed.

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GTA V sold-through more units from April athroughJune (the company’s first fiscal quarter) than in any first quarter since the title’s launch in 2013.  And, in the six weeks following the promotion, the game sold more units than in the same period in any previous year.

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That’s impressive for any game, much less for one that was released seven years ago. To date, GTA V has sold nearly 135 million copies, Take-Two said. And GTA Online has been a cash-printing machine for the company, with recurrent consumer spending on the game growing 155% last quarter, setting a new record.

Expect more growth to come, as GTA Online saw more new players join between April and June than it has since the game’s launch. And later this year, Rockstar will release what Take-Two official says- is GTA Online’s biggest update ever, featuring a new take on Heists in a new location.

GTA V and GTA Online are also expected to be major performers as the PlayStation 5 launches. A stand-alone version of GTA Online will be free to PS5 owners for the first three months of the system’s launch. Take-Two’s CEO Strauss Zelnick, speaking with Digital Trends on Monday, would not discuss pricing for that stand-alone version after that period, nor would he discuss whether a version was forthcoming for Microsoft’s Xbox Series X.

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Chris Morris
Chris Morris
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Chris Morris has covered consumer technology and the video game industry since 1996, offering analysis of news and trends and…
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