Grand theft market share

Wall Street is picking up its controller and logging on to Grand Theft Auto VI.

The next installment in the mega franchise has been highly anticipated for years, but multiple delays made fans wonder if it would ever hit the market. Now, the day is nearly here: Preorders begin at midnight tonight, and gamers will be skipping work on November 19 when it finally arrives.

Wall Street, however, is more concerned with ordering stock in GTA’s publisher, Take-Two: According to data compiled by the Wall Street Journal, 30 analysts rate Take-Two bullishly (Buy or Overweight) compared to just two Holds and one Underweight.

Investment firm BTIG just issued a Buy rating and $290 price target on the stock (a 23% premium from today’s close) arguing that GTA VI will “catalyze a sustainable, multi-year improvement in earnings power for the enterprise.”

Bank of America also reiterated its Buy rating, and raised its price target for Take-Two to $368, 57% above today’s closing price. BofA analyst Omar Dessouky argues that the next version of GTA Online, the multiplayer version of the game, could make nearly twice as much money as its predecessor.

“We think the next GTAO should monetize at least as well as Fortnite ($60 per active user annually) because its ‘pay-to-progress’ model should incentivize higher average player spend than Fortnite’s purely cosmetic model,” Dessouky wrote.

Driving growth and cashing in

It’s hard to understate just how big of a deal GTA VI will be: It’s expected to not only be one of the biggest games ever made, but one of the most lucrative entertainment launches of all time.

Some estimates say preorders alone should generate roughly $1 billion in revenue before the game even launches, and it could generate over $3 billion just in its first year.

If those figures sound too good to be true, just take a look at GTA V, which was released in 2013:

• GTA V broke a record by making $800 million in its first day, and reached $1 billion in sales just three days after launch.
• Despite the fact that GTA Online is 13 years old, it still earns Rockstar Games about $9.6 million every week.

It’s only a matter of time until the famous Brew Markets annual stock market game starts putting up those kinds of numbers.—LB