The success of Grand Theft Auto 5 continues to be mind-boggling, and the game managed to place on the UK's best-selling games list of 2020 at an impressive third place, outpacing titles like Assassin's Creed Valhalla and The Last of Us Part II in the process. Grand Theft Auto 5 initially released in 2013, and has since made the journey to virtually every available platform since, constantly getting ports and updates to its online content to keep the game relevant well after anyone could have predicted.
The business model Rockstar Games employed with Grand Theft Auto 5 isn't unique to the company - Skyrim is another game that's basically chased every possible platform port it can - but the success Rockstar is enjoying with this strategy is noteworthy. Part of that can be attributed to the presence of GTA Online within the Grand Theft Auto 5 ecosystem, with the former continuing strong into 2021. Grand Theft Auto 5's release, online components, and subsequent marketing has been a case study in how to extract every drop of value out of a single game, with Red Dead Redemption 2 following suit when it released with a deep, well-loved single-player campaign paired with an online mode in Red Dead Online meant to lengthen the game's life cycle significantly.
As of 2020, that approach is still working for Rockstar Games, as Grand Theft Auto 5 managed to become the third best-selling game of 2020 in the UK according to the Entertainment Retailers Association. The game sold over 1 million units, placing it behind FIFA 21 and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and ahead of Assassin's Creed Valhalla and The Last of Us Part II. The sales are also notable beyond just Grand Theft Auto 5 as the report also indicates that video game spending saw an uptick in revenue across both digital and physical sales, the latter being especially intriguing given how difficult 2020 was on physical retailers.
Grand Theft Auto 5's UK sales are evidence that the game still has life, which won't be a surprise to the many who play Grand Theft Auto Online. Grand Theft Auto 5 on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S is expected in 2021, too, so there's every chance the game might see another influx of purchasers interested in its current-gen port.
That being said, it feels like Grand Theft Auto 5 is pretty close to the end of its focus as the face of the franchise. Fans have been clamoring for a Grand Theft Auto 6 for years now, and it's not like a new entry and GTA 5 couldn't exist simultaneously. Without official confirmation of GTA 6 being on the horizon, however, consumers will have to face the facts that Grand Theft Auto 5, as evidenced by the report from the Entertainment Retailers Association, remains immensely lucrative despite its age - and as a result, there's not a lot of pressure on Rockstar Games to revisit the series with haste.