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GTA Online is poised to have its most profitable microtransaction year ever

Oh, and GTA 5 just casually sold another five million units in three months. No biggie

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Grand Theft Auto V is one of the most successful games of all time, and its popularity only keeps growing. In its latest financial report, publisher Take-Two says GTA Online had its biggest December ever, and a record year-end quarter both in terms of player count and profit. Take-Two additionally says that online spending in GTA is on track to reach a 12-month record.

“Grand Theft Auto Online once again exceeded our expectations delivering its best holiday quarter ever for both audience size and net bookings,” CEO Strauss Zelnick tells investors during a conference call. “During the third quarter, recurrent consumer spending on Grand Theft Auto Online grew 54% driven by Rockstar Games’ continued release of engaging new content.”

The Diamond Casino and subsequent and Diamond Casino heist brought GTA Online “its biggest series of back to back updates ever in terms of player numbers,” and previous reports on GTA 5 player count back that up – those updates brought the biggest numbers since the game’s launch (on Xbox 360 and PS3, remember!) back in 2013.

Zelnick adds “We are now on track to deliver a new record for Grand Theft Auto Online recurrent consumer spending in fiscal 2020.” If you’re not acquainted with financial reports from game companies, ‘recurrent consumer spending’ means ‘microtransactions’ – so GTA Online’s in-game purchases are now more popular than ever. We’ll see in three months’ time if Zelnick’s prediction comes true.

Full GTA 5 sales haven’t slowed down, either. The game has now sold-in over 120 million units. While that includes retail copies shipped to stores that haven’t yet sold through to players, it’s still an impressive count – and one that’s up five million units over the past three months alone.

While some players are still looking forward to the as-yet-unannounced-but-still-inevitable GTA 6 release date, it seems Rockstar and Take-Two have little reason to supplant their current game. For now, you can follow that link for a breakdown of the scant reports we’ve heard on the next entry on the crime sequel.