GTA Online has 8m weekly players as another publisher sees digital soar

Take Two has joined the ever-growing list of publishers profiting from players’ increased hunger for digital content.

The publisher has revealed that Grand Theft Auto Online – which was included as part of Grand Theft Auto V – currently has 8m weekly players. For comparison, EA’s Battlefield 4 and Battlefield Hardline currently attract 6m monthly players between them.

GTA Online’s success helped digital revenues grow 39 per cent year-on-year in the publisher’s most recent quarter. Digital now accounts for 51 per cent of Take Two’s overall revenue, with recurrent spending claiming a 20 per cent share of that total.

The numbers are yet another example of the increasing grip digital has on publisher strategy. Take Two said in September that it hasn’t even planned any single player DLC for GTA V as its efforts are focused on building the multiplayer game.

EA announced last week that digital now accounted for 60 per cent of its total revenue, with big growth in the Ultimate Team numbers for both its FIFA and Madden series. MCV also last week revealed that FIFA 16 was the UK’s biggest digital earner in September, generating over 4.5m.

At Activision, meanwhile, digital accounts for 67 per cent of total revenue, climbing 38 per cent year-on-year to $629m. Ubisoft also saw digital growth of 48 per cent in its last quarter, hitting €100m.