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The premiere of gameplay footage from the highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI topped Netflix Inc.’s viewing charts last week, reaching 31.1 million views and outperforming a new film from Robert De Niro.
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The near-27-minute video, showing off the open-world crime game ahead of its planned Nov. 19 release, was exclusive to Netflix for six hours before it was released on YouTube and other video platforms. That window helped the footage surpass the new movie The Whisper Man and the fifth season of Outer Banks to debut as number one on the charts in 87 of the 93 countries that Netflix tracks globally, the company said.
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It was a first for Netflix to feature marketing for an upcoming video game like this, but many aspects of Grand Theft Auto VI strike new ground. The last edition of the game sold more than 230 million copies, and the new one is expected to be one of the most lucrative entertainment products of all time.
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The first trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI, released in 2023, has racked up 293 million views on YouTube and broke several viewership records. Netflix counts its viewership differently than YouTube, summing up the total hours viewed and then dividing that by a program’s runtime rather than tallying up everyone that starts watching a video.
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In the days ahead of the premiere, more than a dozen clips from Grand Theft Auto VI were leaked online. Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., the company behind Grand Theft Auto, has subpoenaed the chat company Discord Inc. as it looks to find the leaker.
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