Of the roughly 20 million people who played Grand Theft Auto Online in April 2025, 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.
What does that retention stat actually translate to, though? 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.
GTA Online Retention Comparison
Metric | GTA Online | Fortnite | Roblox |
|---|---|---|---|
Monthly active users (April 2025) | ~20 million (PlayStation + Xbox) | Significantly higher | Platform-scale (hundreds of millions) |
6-month retention rate (October 2025) | ~29% (~5.8 million retained) | ~50% | ~50% |
12-month retention rate (April 2026) | ~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) |
The retention figures track the April 2025 console-player cohort. Steam concurrency and Roblox platform-scale figures are separate measures, not equivalent audience totals.
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 the next iteration of Online 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.
Other possibilities include more frequent updates, easier crew discovery and persistent social spaces. Reputation systems, skill trees or narrative progression could offer goals beyond cash and rank, while cross-play could help friends on different platforms stay together. These are design suggestions, not features announced by Rockstar.
According to the Ampere report, GTA Online has one of the worst retention rates in live service gaming. Yet, 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.