Why is Take-Two’s boss so happy? Grand Theft Auto Online is his ‘gift that keeps on giving’

One of the biggest games in the world might have made $1 billion in three days, but that’s not what has its creators excited.

Take-Two Interactive chief executive officer Strauss Zelnick appeared on Fox Business‘s market-analysis show Risk & Reward today, and he, of course, talked about Grand Theft Auto V, his company’s biggest hit. When going over the success of the open-world crime game, which has surpassed 32.5 million unit sales, Zelnick pointed out that Take-Two is actually more excited about the success of GTA Online, with three out of four players spending time in the online component. He also gave credit to developer Rockstar Games for delivering another blockbuster.

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“They’re constantly thinking about how they can delight audiences and blow away even the biggest expectations,” said Zelnick. “That’s how we have nearly perfect Metacritc ratings, and that yields us sales. It also yields us great pride in our organization that we can delight people all around the world with this incredible property.”

Zelnick went on about how Take-Two and Rockstar adapted to the changing market to build Grand Theft Auto Online, which is the GTAV’s persistent connected world. Players can work with and against one another in GTA Online, and they can also spend money.

“The biggest change this time around is not just that we sold 32.5 million units or the fact that we sold a billion dollars worth of product in three days,” he said. “It’s that 75 percent of the people playing Grand Theft Auto while connection [sic] to the Internet are playing Grand Theft Auto Online. That’s turning out to be a very interested property.”

The executive explained that with previous GTA releases, the company had to just sell the product, collect their money up front, and then start on the next project.

“Now, we’re finding [that] we’re creating recurrent consumer spending, and we have the gift that keeps on giving,” said Zelnick.