GTA V, a social media succes

Last Tuesday, September 17^th, was a very important day for many gamers worldwide. It was the day on which the game Grand Theft Auto Five (GTA V) was released. It is said to be the greatest game ever made, in terms of quality as well as in terms of revenue. Here is a remarkable fact to show you the popularity of the game: The game has been made with a budget of $265 million, which makes GTA V the most expensive game ever. The gross profit of the game within the first 24 hours after it was launched, was calculated on $800 million. So, there is no doubt about the popularity of the game. But why do so many people buy this game? Is the game just so incredibly good, or was it the social marketing campaign which plays an important role in its success?

First, let’s take a step back in time. The previous big-launch in the Grand Theft Auto series was the game GTA IV, which was released in 2008. This game was a record-breaking success as well. It grossed about $310 million on its first day and over $500 million dollar of revenue in its first week. In that time, many critics were very positive about the game, some even said that it was the best game ever made. So the combination of the GTA-series’ popularity among gamers and the words of praise the series received from critics, must be seen as a confirmation of the fact that GTA V is just a very good game on its own. But something is remarkable about the facts above. GTA V grossed over $800 million on its first day, while GTA IV grossed ‘just’ $310 million on its first day of sale. So GTA V earned over 2.5 times more money within 24 hours! There could be many reasons for this. I think social media played a big role in the success of GTA V.

As said, there has been a period of 5 years between the launches of both Grand Theft Auto games. Rockstar, the developer of Grand Theft Auto, launched several smaller games in this period, but these games where all kind of extensions on the ‘big’ GTA IV game. So within this 5 year period, Rockstar had to stay in touch with its users. The way they managed to stay in touch with gamers, was mainly through social media. Rockstar is using social media very intense. They have accounts on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+ and Instagram. Below, some facts about Rockstar and Grand Theft Auto on social media:

Official Rockstar Facebook page: 4.8 million likes
Official Rockstar Twitter account: 1.3 million followers
Official Rockstar YouTube channel: 1.5 million subscribers
Official Grand Theft Auto V Facebook page: 4.3 million likes

These numbers are only about the official Rockstar and GTA V accounts. There are many more unofficial pages with thousands of likers and followers as well. The unofficial accounts frequently tend to copy the news or updates from the official accounts. This simply means that even more people than the numbers above stay in touch with the game. I’ve been following one of these pages myself for the last years and what I noticed was that from the moment Rockstar started the production of GTA V, they have frequently been giving updates about the production process of the game. The closer the game came to its launch date, the more frequent Rockstar published facts about the game. These facts included beautiful screenshots, amazing videos and pictures of the game’s characters. Because Rockstar gave so many updates, the fans went crazy about the game.

I think this is a very smart way of staying in touch with your fans during such a long period of time. By constantly sharing so much content of a beautiful looking game, you make your fans very enthusiastic and they can’t wait to start playing the game. That’s probably why so many people bought the game on its first day. So the success of GTA V of course has multiple reasons. But one of the main reasons this game was a great success, is the way Rockstar used this form of social advertising.

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