GTA 5 sold $1 billion worth of copies in just three days, making it one of the biggest video game launches of all time. The game was also one of the biggest-budget titles ever at $260 million, and took around five years to develop.
GTA 5 didn’t win easily, though, as other nominees for Game of the Year included BioShock Infinite, Super Mario 3D World, The Last of Us, and Tomb Raider. However, seeing as how GTA 5 has become one of the most successful video games, we’re certainly not surprised that Rockstar received the award.
GTA 5 also broke seven Guinness World Records, including best-selling action-adventure video game in 24 hours, best-selling video game in 24 hours, fastest entertainment property to gross $1 billion, fastest video game to gross $1 billion, highest grossing video game in 24 hours, highest revenue generated by an entertainment product in 24 hours and most viewed trailer for an action-adventure video game.
Rockstar sold 11.21 million copies of the game in its first 24 hours of release, and generated revenue of $815.7 million in the first 24 hours, eventually reaching $1 billion in sales after just three days of being on the market. This break’s Activision’s record that was previously held by the Call of Duty series for several years in a row (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 took 16 days to gross $1 billion dollars in sales).
Other big winners at the VGX awards this year include Naughty Dog (Studio of the Year), BioShock Infinite (Best Shooter), Forza 5 (Best Driving Game), Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag (Best Action-Adventure Game) and Plants vs. Zombies 2 (Best Mobile Game).
This was the 10th annual VGX awards, with this year being the first year using the “VGX” name. Previously, Spike TV called it the VGAs, standing for “Video Game Awards.” For nostalgic purposes, Madden NFL 2004 won the 2003 Game of the Year, Tony Hawk’s Underground won Best Sports Game and Nascar Thunder 2004 won Best Driving Game.
