Grand Theft Auto and NBA 2K publisher Take-Two Interactive had a massive fiscal third quarter, and a big part of its growth came from digital.
The company reported that its revenue from digitally delivered content grew 64 percent year over year to $217.2 million. That made up nearly a quarter of all Take-Two revenue for the quarter. Executives at the publisher point to Grand Theft Auto, NBA 2K15, Borderlands, and Civilization: Beyond Earth for pushing its digital sales thrive. The worldwide gaming market is a multi-billion-dollar industry, and Take-Two continues to step up as one of the most successful companies making games.
While new digital games helped Take-Two during the quarter, the company also saw an increase in its “recurrent consumer spending,” which represents players who spend more money on a game through add-on content or virtual currency after buying the game.
“Revenue from [virtual currency, downloadable add-on content and online games] grew 23 percent year over year and accounted for 36 percent of net revenue from digitally delivered content,” reads Take-Two’s quarterly report. “The single-largest contributor to recurrent consumer spending was Grand Theft Auto Online, which continued to deliver stronger-than-expected results.”
GTA Online is the always-connected virtual world that comes with GTA V. It enables gamers to play with one another in a digital playground, and it encourages those consumers to spend cash on in-game currency that they can then exchange for cosmetic items as well as characters boosts.
Developer Rockstar Games, which is responsible for the GTA series, typically takes multiple years to deliver a full sequel in this franchise. But now, with GTA Online performing so well, Take-Two can continue generating revenue from its marquee release while the developer puts its head down on the inevitable GTA VI.
Grand Theft Auto wasn’t the only game to see big digital sales. Recurrent spending was up 90 percent year-over-year for NBA 2K15. That’s thanks to new downloadable items in the online game as well as new content in the MyNBA 2K15 companion app.