Rockstar made over half a billion dollars in revenue from 'GTA 5 Online'

Popular action-adventure video game, "GTA 5," has a multiplayer mode, "GTA Online," which is quite popular among its fans. The "GTA Online" offers fans with the option of microtransactions. Players use microtransactions to bypass the natural progression and to speed up the process. And these microtransactions generate a good deal of money.

A recent lawsuit from Leslie Benzies, former Rockstar North president, revealed that the online segment of the game "generated at least $500 million in revenue" from the game's microtransactions, which the lawsuit calls "cash-generating tool."

"GTA Online is particularly noteworthy in that it has its own 'economy,' in which online goods can be purchased using virtual 'currency.' Real cash is used to purchase virtual currency, which can in turn be spent on virtual goods and services. These purchases have a nearly 100% profit margin, subject only to nominal development costs and app store commissions," the court documents noted.

Benzies has sued Take-Two for 150 million.

Some other reports have suggested that this could be the reason why Rockstar never released a single-player story content and has focused mostly on releasing "GTA Online" DLC contents.