GTA 5 vs Red Dead Redemption 2: Who Wins the Numbers Game? Sales and Revenue Explained
Whether it is GTA 5 or Red Dead Redemption 2, the fans are always curious to know which has received more success since their release.
- Red Dead Redemption 2 was released much after GTA 5, but the competition is still on.
- Still, from the very beginning, GTA 5 has created milestones that no one else has touched in these years.
- Red Dead Redemption 2 has reached close, but still the gap is there.
Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption are two of the most renowned Rockstar franchises of all time. If we consider it properly, Red Dead Redemption is one of those franchises that broke the monotony of the GTA Series with its introduction to the action-adventure genre in 2010. Its Metacritic score and sales number proved Rockstar fans welcomed this game with all their hearts.
Eight years after the first game, this action-adventure series received its second entry in 2018, and once again history was created. Even though GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 didn’t drop around the same time, these two games have had a hard competition since 2018.
GTA 5 Broke Every Sales Record in the Opening Year
Although in this piece we are going to compare the sales of GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2, keep in mind that it is hard for any game to compete with the GTA titles, especially the seventh main entry in the Grand Theft Auto series. While GTA games always touch those peaks that hardly any game thought to see, GTA 5 has shattered all the records and created a milestone of $815 million in sales in 24 hours all over the world.
Approximately the game sold around 11.21 million copies in the first 24 hours of release. This immense sales number has crossed another all-time best-seller game, Minecraft, in its initial years. The revenue of Rockstar after the release of GTA 5 has surpassed even the biggest movie franchises.
The most interesting part is that the game took around $115 million to be made, so it was not a cheap game. Right now, it costs $59.99 for the standard edition and $79.99 for the Special Edition, and still, the sales number is massively shocking.
GTA 5’s All-Time Sales Record Is a Milestone That Other Games Dream Of Reaching
When the start was that great, how can this game not create a history? Since it was released, this game has taken down loads of records, and if you take a closer look, you will notice that it was the fastest-selling game in the UK in October 2018, defeating Call of Duty: Black Ops. Within five days of its release, only in the UK, this game sold 2.25 million copies.
This progress was uninterrupted throughout, and within three weeks, it broke the sales record of GTA 4, and in week 5, it became the fastest-selling title in the UK. Throughout these years, the journey was the same.
According to current reports, in its eleven-year journey, this GTA game has sold over 205 million copies. To date, the membership of GTA V is continuously increasing, and as GTA 6 is coming closer with probably a 2025 release date, if not met with further delays, the membership saw an incline of 33% from what it was last year during this time.
Red Dead Redemption 2 Sales Broke Industry Records in an Instant After Its 2018 Release
Red Dead Redemption 2 was released much later with more improved console and PC versions of gameplay. This game was released on consoles in 2018, and later it made its way to PCs and other platforms. If you are unaware, in 2018, this game shattered all the industry records within a few days.
Though we didn’t find the exact number of sales in the first 24 hours of its initial release, records say it had the largest opening weekend in the history of gaming, with Rockstar witnessing over $725 million in revenue in 72 hours.
The estimated sales were not even closer to what it had created. It was predicted to earn $400-500 million in the first three days, but it surpassed all the predictions and reached a new height with over 17 million copies sold in two weeks. In the last six years of the journey, this game has sold more than 67 million units.
Red Dead Redemption 2 or GTA 5: Which Is Getting the Crown?
From the above discussion, the picture is pretty clear. Whether it is initial sales, revenue generation, or total sales, GTA V is far ahead of RDR2. If we analyze things a bit more, we can easily compare the sales of the first few weeks. While in the first three days, RDR2 had $725 million in revenue, GTA V in the same time period crossed one billion.
Around that time, when RDR2 was released, the seventh GTA installment sold around 100 million copies. Therefore, these two games have created milestones and broke records for sure, but still, the Grand Theft Auto game was far ahead of any other game you take into consideration and compare.
While Red Dead Redemption 2 was defeated in sales and profit, it has won the crown of getting the most Game of the Year awards. While GTA 5 has 163 of them in possession, Red Dead Redemption 2 has 175+ in stock to flaunt.
Both of these are legendary games that can claim to be two of the best in history. Rockstar never compromised with the quality of gameplay when it came to the Red Dead Redemption series and Grand Theft Auto series.
Still, when it comes to the numbers, GTA V is always that unbeatable king with some unimaginable numbers that are almost impossible to touch.
