By any standard, Grand Theft Auto is a mega-franchise of mammoth proportions.
Over its 25-year lifetime, the equally influential and controversial video game series developed by Rockstar Games has sold more than 405 million copies, netting multiple billions for parent company Take-Two (NASDAQ:TTWO) Interactive Software Inc.
The latest instalment on the mainline series, Grand Theft Auto V, has sold over 190 million copies alone since debuting a full decade ago.
GTA’s success has been the primary driver behind Take-Two’s $26 billion market valuation on the Nasdaq stock exchange.
Cash cow though it is, Take-Two has been careful to milk its killer app dry, favouring drawn-out interludes between instalments that invariably send the gaming community into stratospheric levels of hype and anticipation.
This has greatly benefitted GTA’s reputation as a top-tier gaming franchise, with every title garnering widespread critical and public acclaim.
Yet this strategy is a risky one in its own right.
Following eight years of fervent hype, CD Projekt Red’s follow-up to breakthrough hit The Witcher III, Cyberpunk, had one of the most disastrous launches in video game history, leading investors to sue the Polish studio for misrepresenting the quality of the game.
Riddled with bugs and missing key content, Cyberpunk was pulled from Sony’s digital store and retailers were pushed into offering refunds.
Cyberpunk has since recovered from this terrible launch and has gone on to receive commercial and critical success, but the launch debacle underscored the dangers of allowing hype (whether that be for a video game, film or Game of Thrones series) to reach a fever pitch if the product fails to deliver.
Such is the risk Rockstar and Take-Two now face, having officially unveiled the trailer for the next Grand Theft Auto title.
Yet to be named, the Miami-inspired Vice City-set title is expected in 2025, a full 12 years after GTA V.
The trailer portrays a Bonnie and Cydle-influenced plotline in a hugely detailed world set to a Tomy Petty soundtrack.
Expectations are undoubtedly high, though developer Rockstar has rarely put a foot wrong, with its most recent big-ticket release Red Dead Redemption II receiving widespread acclaim and commercial success, selling over 23 million copies in the first two weeks alone.
Responses to GTA VI’s official trailer have also been positive, if sarcastic. “I hope in 50 years my grandchildren will see the GTA 7 trailer”, reads the top response to Gamestop’s YouTube upload of the trailer.
“This game will be a masterpiece. I live in Miami, and honestly they captured the whole essence of this city perfectly,” read another, with another stating: “When I read an interview from one of the main heads of the game saying they wanted it to be almost to perfect before release I was not expecting this and I fully believe the wait for this game will be worth it completely.”
In just two more years, we’ll get to find out if the wait was worth it.