Red Dead Redemption 2 Sales Surge As GTA Online Sets More Records

Take-Two, the company that owns Rockstar Games and 2K Games, released its latest earnings report this week, and in particular, Red Dead Redemption II and Grand Theft Auto V are doing very well.

Red Dead Redemption 2 net bookings--that is, how much money Take-Two made from the game--jumped by 124 percent during the July-September quarter. This include 106 percent growth in full-game sales, Take-Two said. It would appear that, like many other games, Red Dead Redemption II enjoyed a surge in sales as people continued to stay home during COVID-19 lockdowns.

In conjunction with the spike in sales, Take-Two reported that new player growth rose by 47 percent during the period. Additionally, microtransaction sales--which are called "recurrent consumer spending" at Take-Two--rose year-over-year for Red Dead Online by 96 percent, exceeding expectations.

In total, Red Dead Redemption II has sold 34 million copies to date. And more content is coming to Red Dead Online down the track, Take-Two said. The game has received consistent new events and challenges since it launched.

Moving to GTA V and GTA Online, microtransaction spending in GTA Online was ahead of Take-Two's forecast for the period (which it never disclosed in the first place). This fiscal second quarter was also GTA Online's best-ever second quarter in its lifetime based on active players and new players.

Despite its age, Take-Two is not expecting GTA Online to slow down soon. In fact, Take-Two said it expects the game to reach a new all-time high for microtransaction spending during the current fiscal year. This will presumably be helped in part by the biggest update yet for GTA Online, which is coming soon. It hasn't been officially announced, but management said it will include a new area and a new take on the fan-favorite heists experience.

GTA Online will likely see another jolt after that, as Rockstar is releasing a free-to-play standalone version of the game exclusively on PS5 for a few months, after which it will come to Xbox Series X. In addition to this, a new edition of GTA V for PS5 and Xbox Series X is also in the works. The game has already sold 135 million copies to become one of the most successful games in history, and it's set to grow even bigger when its next-gen editions are released in 2021. If current trends continue, it will probably end up topping the sales charts for years to come.

Take-Two's sales report also revealed the news that Kerbal Space Program 2 has been delayed again.