Yesterday many news sites reported the astonishing news that Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto 5 was now the most profitable entertainment product ever, earning more than any other game, movie, album or anything else in history. This is incorrect.
GameWatcher were not willing to take the news reported by MediaWatch at face value and we can reveal that while GTA5 is incredibly successful, it is not the biggest entertainment product of all time: World of Warcraft is.
MediaWatch says that Grand Theft Auto V has sold 90 million units and has earned more than $6 Billion for Rockstar and Take-Two. Enormously successful, and even adjusted for inflation beats all movies such as Avatar, Star Wars or Gone With The Wind.
Unfortunately GTA5 itself is eclipsed by Blizzard's World of Warcraft, which has been around for longer at 12 years, continues to have an active player base, and over a year ago was estimated to have earned around $10 billion in revenue. It's certainly more now, and new expansion Battle for Azeroth is due on August 14.
It is possible that Grand Theft Auto 5 may still eclipse World of Warcraft, but as it stands right now the giant MMO is still top.
Then again, there's also League of Legends which gets around $2 billion a year and has been around since 2009, but that's a bit harder to calculate. Either way, it's not GTA5. Sorry.
