Rockstar’s secret isn’t speed. It’s patience.
The original Grand Theft Auto sold about one million copies. Grand Theft Auto III surpassed 14 million. San Andreas exceeded 27 million. Grand Theft Auto IV sold more than 28 million.
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Daily TribuneThe original Grand Theft Auto sold about one million copies. Grand Theft Auto III surpassed 14 million. San Andreas exceeded 27 million. Grand Theft Auto IV sold more than 28 million.
SLOW is a strategy.
PHOTOGRAPH courtesy of Rockstar Games
The gaming industry moves at breakneck speed.
Every year, publishers release sequels, remasters and live-service titles to keep players engaged and shareholders satisfied. Annual franchises have become the norm, where missing a holiday launch often means missing billions in revenue.
Rockstar Games has chosen a different path.
When Grand Theft Auto VI finally arrives in November 2026, it will end a 13-year wait since Grand Theft Auto V debuted in September 2013 — the longest gap between two mainline Grand Theft Auto titles. Rockstar itself acknowledged the delay, saying it needed additional time to deliver the level of quality “players have come to expect and deserve.”
To impatient fans, the delay was agonizing. To Rockstar, it was simply business as usual.
The company’s history is defined less by how often it releases games than by how dramatically each release reshapes the industry.
Founded in 1998 after BMG Interactive was acquired by Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar was built around a simple philosophy championed by brothers Sam and Dan Houser: create the kinds of games they themselves wanted to play. That meant prioritizing open worlds, cinematic storytelling and unprecedented player freedom over yearly release schedules.
The formula has rarely changed. The original Grand Theft Auto arrived in 1997. Two years later came Grand Theft Auto 2.
Rockstar then took another two years before releasing Grand Theft Auto III in 2001, the title widely credited with redefining open-world gaming by bringing the franchise into fully realized 3D environments.
Instead of slowing down, Rockstar entered one of gaming’s most remarkable creative runs. Vice City followed in 2002. San Andreas arrived in 2004.
Grand Theft Auto IV came four years later in 2008, introducing a new engine, a more grounded narrative and technical leaps that again raised expectations across the industry.
By then, Rockstar was resetting the benchmark for everyone else. The same philosophy extended beyond Grand Theft Auto.
After Red Dead Revolver debuted in 2004, Rockstar spent six years transforming the western franchise before releasing Red Dead Redemption in 2010.
Rather than rushing a sequel, the company waited another eight years before launching Red Dead Redemption 2 in 2018, a title praised for its attention to detail, lifelike world and cinematic storytelling.
Then came the silence.
Apart from updates to Grand Theft Auto Online, Rockstar spent years without releasing a major new title.
To many players, the wait felt endless.
But history suggests the company has never viewed development as a race.
Instead, every generation of Rockstar games has grown larger, more technically ambitious and more expensive than the last.
The original Grand Theft Auto sold about one million copies. Grand Theft Auto III surpassed 14 million. San Andreas exceeded 27 million. Grand Theft Auto IV sold more than 28 million.
Then Grand Theft Auto V became one of the most successful entertainment products ever created, selling more than 200 million copies and generating billions of dollars in revenue through both game sales and GTA Online.
The stakes surrounding Grand Theft Auto VI are therefore unlike anything the gaming industry has experienced.
Reports suggest the game’s budget has climbed into unprecedented territory, with thousands of developers across Rockstar’s global studios contributing to production. While Rockstar has never confirmed development costs, analysts widely expect it to become one of the most expensive video games ever made.
That ambition comes with a price.
Rockstar has long faced criticism over demanding development cycles, workplace culture and so-called “crunch” periods during production. Dan Houser, the company’s longtime creative force and lead writer, departed Rockstar in 2020 after helping shape nearly every major title in its modern history.
Yet one lesson continues to define the studio.
Innovation rarely follows a calendar.
The pressure to ship products faster is real, not only in gaming but across technology. Investors want growth. Consumers want the next big thing. Competitors never stop moving.
Rockstar has repeatedly chosen a different measure of success.
It delays, rewrites, rebuilds.
And when it finally releases a game, the industry often spends years trying to catch up.
