The most expensive game of all time, the highest first day sales, the biggest map Rockstar has ever attempted... it's safe to say Grand Theft Auto V is a game which involves a number of big numbers. In the interest of generating some lovely stats-porn Wired.co.uk gathered together the most significant so you can get a handle on the scope of Rockstar's most recent release: \1. GTA V is reportedly the most expensive game ever created with a combined development and marketing budget of £170 million. For context, that's over double that of GTA IV. \2. Within 24 hours GTA V had snatched the crown from
Call of Duty with first day sales of $800 million (£500 million) as opposed to the $500 million (£310 million) managed by Call of Duty: Black Ops 2... \3. ...and by the end of the third day, company estimates had worldwide retail sales pegged at over $1 billion. A press release by Take-Two, Rockstar's parent company, adds, "We believe this marks the fastest that any entertainment property, including video games and feature films, has reached this significant milestone." \4. GTA Online may have had a slightly bumpy launch with servers creaking under the influx of players, but the teething trouble reflects another impressive stat. According to IGN's Keza MacDonald: "At a conservative estimate I would expect about two million players to log on to GTA Online within the first 24 hours." \5. Not everyone is in a position to be grumbling about
Online, however -- fans of the series are still waiting for confirmation of a PC release for GTA V. 576,439 of them have already signed a petition demanding Rockstar bring the game to PC. (Well,
576,454 by the time we finished typing that last sentence.) \6. In addition to the main game, Rockstar released a companion iOS app called iFruit, which lets the player train their dog, Chop, as well as buy merchandise, engage with the in-game social network parody, LifeInvader and customise your car. As you might have guessed, the app topped the Apple download charts. The number in this instance is "one" because of the chart topping. \7. With development starting around April 2008, it has taken over five years for GTA V to come to fruition. Five years, five months and miscellaneous weeks, days, hours and seconds to be precise-ish. \8. Over that timeframe the Rockstar team built the biggest
GTA world so far with art director Aaron Garbut noting, "When you include interior and exterior spaces together, Los Santos is bigger than the worlds of Red Dead Redemption, San Andreas, and Grand Theft Auto IV combined, with room to spare." The map is thought to shake out at a massive 49 square miles of play area. Rockstar is not confirming the actual size (we asked) although it does say "Grand Theft Auto V is the biggest world we have ever created". \9. According to preview statistics the land mass was expected to be around 3.5 times the size of Red Dead Redemption, and if you factored in underwater zones that swelled to five times the size. In short, underwater areas make up just under a third of the playable world. \10. In addition to being the first in the franchise to feature a dynamic original score, GTA V also contains no fewer than 18 original songs created specifically for the game. A live performance of GTA V's music took place as part of the 51st New York Film Festival.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
