A great buzz has stirred on online news sources as the newest installment of the famous and best-selling franchise, “Grand Theft Auto,” was just released this week. Why is there so much publicity over this video game? Simply because it has generated over $800 million in a single day.
Even with a budget of $266 million, Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. (NASDAQ:TTWO) has broken quite the record. In comparison to movie blockbusters like “Avatar,” which took “17-days to cross the billion-dollar mark”, and other best-selling video games like “Call of Duty: Black Ops 2,” which “earned $1 billion in 15 days”, GTA V is an uncontested revenue-generator and achievement for the company. TTWO has climbed 3%; however, the sales projection has yet to include the figures from the upcoming launches in other countries.
While the immersive, realistic and open-world environment is great for those excited gamers, what does the infamous explicit content mean for society? Although there’s always controversy about GTA V, sales figures will increase; for one thing, the game isn’t the crime-perpetrating catalyst some people may think it is. Rather, it is a “mirror lash[ing] out at… today’s popular culture… including… social networking – a less-than-subtle dig at Facebook comes in the shape of “Lifeinvader” . Lifeinvader’s strapline… is: “Where your personal information becomes a marketing profile (that we can sell).”
The studio at TTWO is well aware of the implications of its game; it is also intentionally trying to demonstrate that its brainchild is not a culture-influencing threat and that perhaps we should re-evaluate some of the other parts of popular culture in our lives.
References
http://www.businessinsider.com/gta-v-earns-800-million-in-one-day-2013-9