Grand Theft Auto Online retains just 25% of players after a year, far below competitors like Fortnite and Roblox. However, with $500M in annual revenue and 20M monthly players, that "weakness" is the exact gap Grand Theft Auto 6 Online is built to close.
Of the roughly 20 million people who played Grand Theft Auto Online in April, only 29 percent were still playing six months later. By April 2026, just 25 percent of players from the prior year remained active, a 4-point drop from six months earlier. According to a new Ampere Analysis report titled "Winning Attention and Defining Cultural Moments," this retention rate is consistently double digits lower than Fortnite and Roblox, placing the standalone online component of Grand Theft Auto V among the weakest in the live service category.
The numbers are alarming, but it presents an opportunity for Grand Theft Auto VI to take advantage of, and based on the job listings, that's exactly what Rockstar Games is building it up to be.
Ampere calls the pattern "bursty," based on how the game pulls enormous numbers when a major update drops and then hemorrhages players until the next one arrives. December 2025 saw a 3.7 million new player spike (a 29% month-over-month increase) driven by a Red Dead Online crossover event. By the following months, the majority of those players had already left. The cycle has repeated for 12 years.
The retention is bad at first glance. What matters is why it is bad, why it isn't, and what it tells you about GTA 6.
Retention Comparison
| Metric | GTA Online | Fortnite | Roblox |
|---|---|---|---|
Monthly active users (April) | ~20 million (PlayStation + Xbox) | Significantly higher | Platform-scale (hundreds of millions) |
6-month retention rate | ~29% (~5.8 million retained) | ~50% | ~50% |
12-month retention rate | ~25% | Higher than GTA Online | Higher than GTA Online |
Retention comparison | "Always double digits lower" than competitors | Industry benchmark | Industry benchmark |
New MAU spike (December 2025) | 3.7 million new players (+29% month-over-month) | Consistent due to seasonal events | Platform-driven |
Steam concurrent range | 66,000-80,000 between updates; 150,000+ after major drops | Not applicable (Epic exclusive) | Not directly comparable |
Game age | 12 years (October 2013) | 9 years (2017) | 20 years as platform (2006) |
Here is the Ampere data, sourced from The Game Business Live presentation.
Now, first things first, GTA Online still generates approximately $500 million per year with a 29% retention rate. It still pulls 5.13 million weekly players on PS5 alone in the US. It is still the second most-played game on PS5, 12 years after launch. The acquisition engine is working. It's just not retaining players, and that is something GTA 6 can solve.
The FiveM acquisition can help with this. Take-Two Interactive bought the company that built the infrastructure most responsible for long-term and constant GTA engagement. FiveM roleplay servers retain players for months and years because the investment is social (relationships, characters, community reputation), not transactional (grinding for cash to buy a car).
If GTA 6 Online ships with official roleplay support, which it likely will, community-created scenarios replace developer-created content as the primary retention driver.
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What GTA 6 Online Needs to Fix
| What Needs to Change | Why | How It Fixes Retention |
|---|---|---|
Faster content cadence | Quarterly major drops leave multi-month gaps where players churn | Close the gap to monthly or bi-monthly significant updates |
Social infrastructure | Players have no reason to log in between content drops | Integrated voice chat, crew discovery, social feeds, persistent social spaces |
Official roleplay support | FiveM proved RP retains players for years; base GTA Online has no equivalent | Ship with RP server support via the Creator Platform; community-created retention |
Meaningful progression | GTA Online progression is purely monetary | Add reputation systems, skill trees, or narrative progression |
Cross-platform play | Player base fragmented across platforms | Cross-play unifies community; eliminates PS4 migration problem |
This is what GTA 6 needs to work on based on the Ampere data.
GTA Online has one of the worst retention rates in live service gaming. It is also true that GTA Online is 12 years old, still attracts 20 million players a month, and still generates $500 million in annual revenue even with that "atrocious" retention rate.
The $8 billion in SEC-filed guidance is built on the assumption that GTA 6 Online will not just replicate those numbers but improve on them.
The retention "weakness" is the opportunity. From the looks of it, Rockstar is building GTA 6 Online as more than just GTA Online with better graphics. The way that it's handling potential competition suggests that it's priming GTA 6's online component as a GTA Online with a reason to stay.