Alinea Insight analysis suggests that the release of GTA 6 may create a short-term "engagement funnel" in the console market, with many players potentially taking a break from their usual free-to-play online titles to explore the new open-world game. Titles likely to be affected include Fortnite, Minecraft, Roblox, Grand Theft Auto V, Grand Theft Auto Online, and Rocket League.
This analysis is based on the monthly active user base and player overlap on PlayStation and Xbox platforms this year. Fortnite averages around 47.9 million monthly active users, with approximately 15% to 20% of them also playing Grand Theft Auto V each month; Minecraft has about 24.2 million monthly active users, with an overlap rate of roughly 20% with Rockstar Games' player base.
Roblox has approximately 22.9 million monthly active users, with about a 25% overlap with Grand Theft Auto V players; Rocket League has around 20.6 million monthly active users, with an overlap of roughly 15%. Analysts suggest that even if only a small fraction of overlapping users switch to GTA 6, it could mean millions of active players temporarily leaving their current games. However, these are merely predictions from analytics firms, not actual churn data released by the respective publishers.
The report predicts that the impact on most live-service games will ease as the initial launch hype fades, with a gradual recovery driven by seasonal updates. Grand Theft Auto Online may face a more prolonged effect, with actual changes in activity and in-game spending depending on Rockstar's plans for the GTA 6 online mode.