GTA VI And The State of the Gaming Blockbuster

Seventeen months after the first trailer of Grand Theft Auto 6 dropped, it felt as though the deafening silence from developer Rockstar Games had reached its absolute peak. Tens of thousands across Reddit and X, TikTok, and Instagram discussed every baseless theory at length, hoping to fill the void. Speculation about the game’s release date ruled publication headlines every other month. The “We got [blank] before GTA 6” memes perfectly punctuated just how long it had been since Rockstar provided any follow-up on the record-breaking trailer from 2023.

Exactly four days after the latest news of the game’s delay, dropped nearly halfway through 2025, the internet’s incessant buzzing was finally hushed, at least for a moment. Without warning, the second trailer for GTA 6 dropped, and folks, it did not disappoint. With its mind-blowing graphics, a proper introduction to our two new sexy leads, and some hints at how this next entry will add compelling twists on the familiar GTA formula, there was a collective understanding that the game truly represents a moment many people have been waiting for in today’s shifting gaming landscape.

Few moments better represent that state of the modern blockbuster. The trailer amassed 475 million views on YouTube alone in its first 24 hours and showed off the full force of Grand Theft Auto 6. Rumors and analysis surrounding the game drive industry trends, like console sales and other game release dates. The game stands as the culmination of an era where huge gambits are made on big-budget, massively popular entertainment products in hopes of pushing the medium forward and profits even further.

Gamers around the globe spent some $184.3 billion on games in 2024, according to Newzoo. Fifty-five percent of that is in mobile games (beware the in-app purchases, folks!). So for the $85 billion left, a hit like Grand Theft Auto 5 — which has raked in some $8 billion over its long shelf life — can be a huge chunk of market share. (By comparison Deadpool and Wolverine, the second-highest grossing movie last year, raked in some $1.3 billion worldwide.) But as blockbusters get bigger and more complex, it becomes a very big risk.

“If you want to build a new type of blockbuster, it’s a question of making an investment knowing that it could fail,” David Cole, founder of digital entertainment research firm DFC Intelligence, tells Inverse. “We’ve seen it a lot with live service games. If it’s not working in its first few months, developers have to pull the plug on the whole thing. Investing big with nowhere to go becomes a complete disaster in gaming.”

To avoid the disaster, Rockstar Games takes its time. It’s a slow march to put out a blockbuster — one that seems increasingly rare in the layoff-happy, budget-tight world that is increasingly defining gaming. As such, GTA 6 really does deserve the hype, whether it is the massive success so many expect it to be — or not.

Too Big To Fail?

“Grand Theft Auto leads the way in terms of the modern gaming blockbuster because it’s most representative of the difficulty of building those types of products,” says Cole. When your game is expected to set a new standard for what games can be in the eyes of the mainstream public, the degree of difficulty rises precipitously.

“The story of GTA has always been compelling, as this is a game that combines mafia-driven crime stories, gritty realism, the feeling you’re in an urban city setting, and outlandish humor,” Cole adds. “Rockstar has struck that balance really well. Other companies can try to copy that formula, but the level of production value Grand Theft Auto has is really hard to replicate.”

“Grand Theft Auto is your tentpole theatrical Star Wars release, while other games that try to recreate it are a Disney+ spinoff you watch at home.”

The recent trailer proves this. Minor details like the way furniture reacts to characters, real-time lighting and reflections, and the density of its fictionalized Florida all represent a painstaking attention that only Rockstar has the resources to pull off.

As Cole puts it, “Grand Theft Auto is your tentpole theatrical Star Wars release, while other games that try to recreate it are a Disney+ spinoff you watch at home. Sure, it might be interesting. But it’s not the same experience. That’s what a billion-dollar-plus development budget will buy you.”

As isolated a situation as GTA 6 is, its success will certainly push companies to try to recreate its success in search of those same profits. That unrealistic and risky pursuit is one of the biggest challenges facing the industry right now. GTA is a known quantity with a built-in audience amassed over three decades. It’s a luxury most companies outside of the three big console manufacturers can’t afford.

The Perfect 30-Year Storm

The series started in 1997 as a top-down, nearly arcade-style game about causing vehicular chaos across three fictional cities and completing rudimentary missions for gang leaders and associates. The game was as charming as it was cartoonishly violent, garnering enough success for a second game in 1999. But it wasn’t until the third game, released in October 2001, that the series would reach a new level of popularity.

By converting the original two games’ “go anywhere, do anything” approach to 3D, Rockstar was able to fully realize its vision, creating one of the most enduring and iconic gaming franchises ever. A star-studded cast of actors (Kyle MacLachlan, Michael Madsen, Robert Loggia, just to name a few) and a bit of mainstream controversy over its sexual content and over-the-top violence in contemporary America shot Grand Theft Auto to the top of the pop culture zeitgeist.

It wasn’t just loud and bold; it was good, earning dozens of awards that year. The critical and commercial success of Grand Theft Auto 3 is what popularized the open world genre that dominates the AAA game industry today.

Wisely, Rockstar followed up with two critically acclaimed sequels in 2002’s Vice City and 2004’s San Andreas. Rolling into the next generation of game consoles, Rockstar invested in becoming a self-sustaining industry leader. It developed proprietary tech (the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine) for all of its games and released a wave of gems, including Table Tennis, Red Dead Redemption, Midnight Club, Max Payne 3, and, of course, two Grand Theft Autos to bookend the era. Each subsequent release pushed the boundaries of its technology while producing some of the best games in their respective genres.

Rockstar’s swansong of the generation, Grand Theft Auto 5, may have changed the company the most. Released for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in 2013, this was the crescendo of everything Rockstar had learned developing for these consoles. It had all the top-notch production you’d come to expect from a Grand Theft Auto, plus a constantly updated live service component of a game millions of people already loved. Rockstar was early to the trend — this preceded games like Fortnite and Roblox by at least four years. GTA: Online not only broke the mold; it created an unimaginable revenue stream for one of the most prolific developers in gaming.

Barring Minecraft, Grand Theft Auto 5 has become the best-selling game of all time through various re-releases, PC mods that let players create the experience they want, and, of course, microtransactions. There was a catch that accompanied this unprecedented success. Rockstar Games is no longer the prolific company capable of releasing seven games on a single console. Since GTA 5, it has released one other game in Red Dead Redemption 2.

Ripple Effects

Chasing blockbusters has worked out so far for Rockstar. By reducing its output so drastically over the last 12 years, the developer has created a rarified aura around its work. Whereas most upcoming releases will build word of mouth through community streams on YouTube and a regular cadence of new trailers, Rockstar delivers its updates directly to consumers and on its own terms.

“We want to maintain the anticipation and the excitement,” parent company Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick told Bloomberg earlier this year. It’s also an ingenious way to control the narrative around your game.

For everyone else in the gaming business, Rockstar’s silence creates a bit of a nightmare scenario. If you’re a video game company, avoiding the window of a Rockstar release has been a widely understood rule for more than a decade. (After all, many have made that mistake before.) This time around, however, it’s not just other games that have their eyes locked on the developer’s next move.

“If you have a film coming out within the GTA 6 launch window, you must consider ‘Is my audience going to be at home playing GTA 6 and not in a movie theater?’”

“Consumers have a limited entertainment budget in both how much money they can spend and how much time they have,” Cole said. “If you have a film coming out within the GTA 6 launch window, you must consider ‘Is my audience going to be at home playing GTA 6 and not in a movie theater?’ It’s a huge economic impact.”

When GTA 5 released in 2013, games didn’t have the mainstream, all-ages penetration they do now. Today, Cole says that getting the attention of the “video game first” consumer is as important as ever to everyone in the entertainment business. And GTA 6 is a juggernaut too big to ignore.

Too Little, Too Late?

After the cross-generational run that GTA 5 had, we should expect a similar decade-and-a-half-long reign for GTA 6. But there are consequences for the biggest game ever launching more than five years into the current generation.

There has been little reason for the average consumer to upgrade from their 12-year-old PlayStation 4 and Xbox One when gaming’s most popular titles (Fortnite, Call of Duty, and Madden) play just fine on old hardware. And when the newest consoles aren’t getting price cuts but price hikes, it’s easy to turn away from them entirely in favor of PC or mobile gaming.

It’s why industry analysts and developers view GTA 6 as the rising tide that will raise all ships. It’s the one franchise that can reliably push frugal consumers into buying new hardware. Those new players will mean more money spent on subscriptions and other games. To get an idea of the impact the open-world games are expected to have on the current state of gaming, Ampere Analysts estimated that GTA 6’s delay to May 2026 wiped an astounding $2.7 billion in software and console sales from the upcoming holiday season.

But with that many people buying a console five years after it launched, it leaves the question: How many of these new adopters will be willing to upgrade once more in just a year or two? As recently as this month, both Microsoft and Sony have quietly announced new consoles are on the way. But will people even want them when GTA 6, the game that defined the current generation, is released so late and looks so good?

“The way video game hardware goes now, you have the core group of consumers that buy anything new that comes out,” Cole said. “It’s the second tier, the consumers you have to convince a year after the system’s launched, that might be challenging to bring on board as they’re more discretionary about what they’re purchasing.”

How do these companies get around that? Courting Rockstar to make sure GTA 6 is playable, if not enhanced, as close to the launch of these upcoming consoles as possible.

“GTA 6 is a key title,” Cole said. “It can drive hardware. It’s what they called a killer app.”

Gaming’s Biggest Gamble

Gaming’s been in a pretty rough spot the last few years. Since the postpandemic boom that never was, tens of thousands of layoffs and studio closures have plagued the industry’s workforce. And that’s despite games being better, more interesting, and more diverse than ever. When it seems everyone is chasing the dragon that is free-to-play mega successes or unlikely viral indie hits, more publishers and developers are taking huge financial risks, hoping to become the next Fortnite or Peak.

There are shining beacons in game studios that have figured out the formula in the modern era. In 2025 alone, medium-budget hits like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 have shown there’s a sustainable way forward for the industry. These games might not have the ambition or budget of a Rockstar production, but they can resonate with audiences through good old-fashioned clever design and fun gameplay.

As great as it is, though, Expedition 33 isn’t the game that casual players are buying consoles for. It’s not expected to lift the market out of its three-year slump or push people into picking up a controller for the first time in a decade. That privilege belongs almost exclusively to a handful of studios. While the business should learn from Expedition 33’s critical and commercial success, the insatiable hunger for record-setting profits has drawn attention towards the high bar set by industry anomalies like Rockstar Games.

For better or worse, many are looking to the biggest blockbuster in gaming history to help make up the ground lost over the last five years. It's not the healthiest thing for an industry desperately in need of a reckoning with what sustainable development looks like. But it’s the situation it finds itself in when so few games break through the way Rockstar’s crown jewel does.

Grand Theft Auto 6 is the entertainment blockbuster with so much riding on it. More than anyone could imagine.