Netflix is likely pleased as punch with the GTA 6 extended look, which more than doubled its web traffic

One of the more confusing elements of the Grand Theft Auto 6 extended look is the fact that it debuted on Netflix, of all sites. Why? While it’s harder to pin down the reasons Take-Two went for it, I can at least suss out that Netflix is probably feeling very happy with its end of the bargain.

That’s per GamesBeat, which pulled the numbers from Sensor Tower, a market intelligence firm. According to them, the average user count on mobile increased by 50% when compared to the past 12 Thursdays—meanwhile, the average web user count went up a stonking 125%.

This was enough of a bump to cause issues for some viewers, though Netflix otherwise held up reasonably well. That’s great news for the streaming platform, which has presumably been struggling to keep up with that ever-enshittifying perpetual growth mindset—introducing ads over the past few years, ramping up prices, and toying with generative AI to make those aforementioned ads even more annoying. We can, sadly, expect more of this in the future.

As for what Take-Two got out of it, it’s hard to say, given CEO Strauss Zelnick has been tight-lipped on the particulars. It could be Netflix paid a lump sum to the publisher as part of the temporary exclusivity deal, though the kind of payout they’d have to offer Take-Two to get Zelnick interested would be pretty major, given Take-Two’s worth an eye-watering $43.5 billion at the time of writing.

Then again, the preview was only Netflix-exclusive for six whole hours, meaning you’d likely only shell out for a new subscription if you were ravenous for more news—or just didn’t want to spend an evening dodging spoilers before you sat down and watched the thing yourself. It is, after all, already on YouTube.

Which means that Take-Two had very little to lose by saying “yes” other than consumer goodwill. And given the self-styled “Robin Hood” of gaming (these airquotes are so heavy), Cyberleek, has seemingly grabbed the bag and ran? I’m not sure the front against GTA 6 is particularly unified. Chances are that folks are going to buy this game regardless of what Take-Two does.