Rockstar Games may have downplayed the latest ShinyHunters breach, but the leaked GTA Online numbers making the rounds paint a pretty staggering picture of just how massive Rockstar’s live service business really is. Multiple reports on April 13 and 14, 2026, said ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the attack and threatened to leak stolen data unless Rockstar engaged before April 14. Rockstar, for its part, said the breach involved only a limited amount of non-material company information and would have no impact on players or operations.
Now that some of the alleged internal metrics have started circulating online, the numbers attached to GTA Online are hard to ignore. According to the leaked figures being shared by outlets and community trackers, GTA Online generates about $1.3 million per day, $9.6 million per week, and roughly $500 million per year. The same batch of leaked data also claims the mode hit a peak of 9.1 million daily active users on May 20, 2020, right in the middle of the lockdown era boom.
GTA Online is still Rockstar’s real money machine
If those figures are accurate, they explain a lot about how Rockstar has treated GTA Online over the past decade. The mode is not just popular. It is absurdly profitable. A game pulling in around half a billion dollars a year from a live service ecosystem is the kind of business that can keep getting fresh updates, big marketing beats, and premium partnerships almost forever.
The leak goes even further. It says Shark Cards alone generated a total of $5 billion between 2014 and 2024. That is the kind of number that turns an online mode into a pillar of the company. It also helps explain why GTA Online has remained such a major focus even as fans continue waiting for Grand Theft Auto 6.
The player numbers show GTA Online still dwarfs Red Dead Online
One of the more revealing parts of the leak is not just how much GTA Online makes, but how far ahead it is compared to Rockstar’s other online game. The leaked figures claim GTA Online averages around 10 million weekly active users, while Red Dead Online sits at about 1 million. Revenue is reportedly just as lopsided, with Red Dead Online bringing in only $26.4 million per year.
That gap helps explain something players have been complaining about for years. Red Dead Online never received the same level of long-term support, and if these numbers are real, the business reason becomes painfully obvious. From Rockstar’s perspective, one game is a giant live service empire, while the other is barely a fraction of that machine.
The lockdown era was GTA Online at its absolute peak
The reported peak of 9.1 million daily active users on May 20, 2020, says a lot about when GTA Online was at its strongest. That was during the height of pandemic-era engagement, when player activity across the industry exploded. Even so, 9.1 million daily players is a huge number by any standard and shows just how dominant GTA Online became during that stretch.
The leak also claims the Mansions DLC released in December 2025 pushed daily active users back up to 6.1 million. That is well below the 2020 peak, but still a massive audience for a game this old. It suggests GTA Online remains one of the few legacy live service titles that can still generate major spikes from content drops alone.
PlayStation remains the biggest home for GTA Online
Another interesting detail from the leaked data is just how dominant PlayStation apparently is for GTA Online. The figures claim PS5 alone has 3.4 million weekly active users, which is reportedly more than Xbox Series, Xbox One, and PC combined. The same leak also says PS4 still has 1.9 million weekly active users, ahead of Xbox Series at 1.1 million, Xbox One at 1 million, and PC at 890,000.
If that is correct, Rockstar’s close marketing relationship with Sony suddenly makes even more sense. It would not just be about branding. It would be about prioritizing the platform where the biggest chunk of the audience already is. The leaked numbers also say PC accounts for only 3 percent of average weekly GTA Online revenue, which is surprisingly low given how visible the PC player base is online.
GTA+ may be smaller than Shark Cards, but it is still huge
The leak also points to GTA+ reaching a peak of 1.3 million subscribers in December 2025. That is another reminder that Rockstar has quietly built more than one monetization lane into GTA Online. Shark Cards may still be the headline earner, but GTA+ gives Rockstar a recurring subscription layer on top of an already profitable ecosystem.
That combination of microtransactions, subscriptions, and a giant installed player base is exactly why GTA Online has remained such a powerhouse. Even with Grand Theft Auto 6 on the horizon, the current online business still looks like it prints money at a scale most publishers can only dream about.
The most important thing to remember here is that these figures are based on leaked materials circulating after the ShinyHunters breach, not on an official financial release from Rockstar. Rockstar has acknowledged the breach, but it has not publicly authenticated the specific GTA Online and Red Dead Online metrics being shared online.
Still, if even most of these numbers are accurate, they explain years of Rockstar decision-making in one shot. GTA Online was never just a successful multiplayer mode. It was one of the most lucrative live service products in gaming. That is why it kept getting updates, why Red Dead Online slowly faded into the background, and why every new GTA Online content drop still matters so much to Rockstar’s bottom line.
