It’s been a rollercoaster of a year for the entertainment industry as a whole. Three years later, it feels like we are still recovering from COVID-19 and all the issues that came with that experience. With writers’ and actors’ strikes, movies and TV are seriously starting to lag behind. Video Games are on track to become one of the biggest industries in the world, and the massive hype around the GTA 6 announcement proves it.
Rockstar experienced one of the most significant leaks in recent video game production history, as the world went wild about what the franchise would experience next. Considering it has been a decade since the last game entry in the GTA 5 (Grand Theft Auto V) franchise, fans worldwide eagerly awaited what was up next.
Since the leak, Rockstar has kept their cards close to their chest, waiting until they were ready to release any announcements and a finished trailer, and not just bowing to what their community was begging for. Well, they were finally ready and released their first trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI today, on the 5th of December 2023, after an announcement on the 1st of December, and the internet went wild.
Within the first 4 seconds, it is easy to see why fans are so hyped about this game. The game will be stunning, starting with the perfect sunset over a busy Vice City. The character models look almost real, even with the signature style of GTA permeating the art style.
Since the initial leak, fans have been excited about the prospect of playing a female protagonist for the first time in the franchise’s history. Rockstar hasn’t backed down on this, presenting their Bonnie and Clyde-like duo, but mainly from the female lead’s perspective.
There are cars, guns, beautiful graphics, and a campaign that helps you understand Vice City’s difficulties. It looks like GTA 6 will live up to everything GTA fans are hoping for and possibly even surpass it. Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto VI Trailer 1 has only been up on YouTube for the last 13 hours at the time of writing. It has more than 62 million views and 7.2 million likes, so the game will likely be one of the biggest of the next decade. The trailer announcement on social media platforms shared that we can look forward to seeing GTA 6 sometime in 2025, so we look forward to further updates on the game!
Just The GTA 6 Trailer Announcement Got More Hype Than Any Movie of 2023
On the 1st of December, Rockstar Games announced on their official X (formerly Twitter) page that the first trailer would be released on Tuesday, the 5th of December, at 9 AM ET.
pic.twitter.com/BguwiJokQt— Rockstar Games (@RockstarGames) December 1, 2023
At the time of writing, the post had 185 million views. Unfortunately for Rockstar Games, they experienced yet another leak that released the trailer early, so Rockstar released an announcement that their official trailer for GTA 6 was up early for their fans to view. While it’s heartbreaking to see that the company keeps dealing with difficulties and leaks, the constant issue proves that the world is more excited about video games than movies.
If you think about how the world worked during the peak Avengers era, fans were frothing at the mouths to know what was happening next in the Marvel universe. Similarly, when the insanity that was surrounding the DCEU during Zack Snyder’s time at DC, everyone was trying to get the scoop on what was happening at these multi-million dollar production studios because the world cared about what movie was coming next. I’d like to say that games have taken over. Still, games overtook movies a long time ago.
The Gaming Industry Is Almost The Biggest Industry In the World
GTA 6’s explosive arrival and announcement on the scene of the entertainment industry has prompted people to look into the stats and understand why the gaming industry has exploded overnight in response to the decline of the movie industry. Luckily, we have resources like past research from SuperData Research to tell us more about what the industries earn. Unfortunately, SuperData Research only dates back to 2021 because Nielsen Company consolidated the company that year. However, their articles are still available for viewing on gamesindustry.biz.
A particular study that articles love to reference is that digital games spending reached $127 billion in 2020, which details precisely that: The digital game revenue across mobile, PC and console reached $127 billion, 78% of which was created by free-to-play spending. The curious thing about it is that it has grown 12% year-over-year since 2019. Another exciting detail pointed out was that of that $127 billion, $911 million of it was brought in by Grand Theft Auto V.
This study was done in 2020, meaning that even seven years after its initial release, GTA 5 was still the third highest-earning game, but that’s beside the point. Gamerhub gave a couple of different stats for 2020, stating that, as a whole, the global gaming market was valued at 159.3 billion, leaving the music industry entirely in the dust at $19.1 billion, while the movie industry fared a little bit better at $41.7 billion. These stats clearly show that the music industry is eight times behind the video game industry, while the movie industry is just under four times behind.
But when did this start? Vintage Is The New Old shows that the video game industry cutting ahead of the other two can be traced back to 1982. Even when the video game industry was relegated to only arcade video games, it generated $8 billion, effectively making it more than pop music and Hollywood combined ($4 billion and $3 billion, respectively). Yes, these stats are limited to Hollywood and only pop music, but the gap is vast, and it’s clear that it started more than 40 years ago.
According to Bcg.com, the video game industry has become the second-largest industry in the world, following closely behind TV, which is the largest in the world.
Why Has The Video Game Industry Jumped Ahead?
Right now, after looking at the research and the stats, there are two main theories on why video games have jumped so dramatically ahead of the movie and music industry in recent years. The first leading theory about why movies have fallen behind and video games have gained some ground is because of the WAG and SAG-AFTRA strikes and the delays resulting from them. The strikes have pushed publication studios’ slates back by at least a year. We have nothing significant to look forward to until early to mid-2025.
These strikes and delays have been blamed for nothing exciting coming out of Marvel, and the same goes for DC. However, due to their reshuffling, DC Studios has had its fair share of issues this year. This theory doesn’t explain why arcade games managed to get ahead as early as the 1980s.
The other theory is that video games are better. The average person might not think that the video game industry is as big as it is, but gaming is a normal part of life. Everyone’s granny is playing Candy Crush, every youngster knows how to use a computer or a console, and we have access to incredible games.
Where movies are entertaining, and you don’t need to do anything besides watch, video games are interactive, dragging you into the action. This is more true than ever, with the stats showing that access to VR is on the rise. Video games have been taking over for a while, but now it is more significant than ever.
The only factor that might settle this debate is if movies manage to make a dramatic comeback and retake the industry once things after the strikes have calmed down, but only time will tell.
RELATED: Insiders Say Even GTA 6 Developers Don’t Know Why The Game Is Delayed
Do you think movies deserve to be bigger than games and will make a comeback? Were you excited about the GTA 6 announcement? We want to know your theories.
