The first official trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI, released by Rockstar Games on 5 December 2023, accumulated an extraordinary 93 million views on YouTube within its first 24 hours of release, instantly establishing it as the third-most-viewed YouTube video ever during that period and the most-viewed non-music video debut in the platform's history. The trailer's release, which had been hastily pushed forward by approximately 15 hours after a low-quality version leaked on Twitter on 4 December 2023, simultaneously dominated coverage across major gaming press outlets including Polygon, Kotaku, and GameSpot. The 91-second clip generated 8.9 million likes, surpassed the lifetime viewership of Grand Theft Auto V's 2011 reveal trailer within 48 hours, and reset industry expectations for what a video game marketing event could achieve in the streaming era (Carpenter, 2023; Zwiezen, 2023; Williams, 2023).
Rockstar Games had teased the trailer's release for several weeks, with Sam Houser announcing in November 2023 that the company would reveal the long-awaited sequel as part of its 25th anniversary celebrations (Wikipedia contributors, 2026). The pent-up demand was substantial: Grand Theft Auto V had been released in 2013, making the gap between mainline entries the longest in franchise history. Rockstar's announcement post on Twitter declaring a 5 December trailer release accumulated 1.8 million likes within 24 hours, eclipsing the platform's previous gaming-related engagement records (Wikipedia contributors, 2026).
The unscheduled leak of a low-quality version of the trailer on Twitter on 4 December forced Rockstar's hand. Rather than allow the leaked clip to dominate discussion, the studio published the official high-resolution version on YouTube approximately 15 hours ahead of schedule, accompanied by an official Rockstar Newswire post confirming the title, the Vice City setting, the protagonists Lucia and Jason, and a 2025 target release window for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S (Carpenter, 2023; Zwiezen, 2023).
The trailer's velocity in the opening hours was unprecedented for a non-music video. Within 12 hours of being uploaded to Rockstar's official YouTube channel, the trailer had accumulated approximately 46 million views, instantly breaking the record for the most first-day views on a non-music YouTube video. This figure alone exceeded the entire 24-hour totals of nearly every comparable promotional video in the platform's history (Williams, 2023).
By the 24-hour mark, the view count had more than doubled to approximately 93 million, placing the trailer in elite company alongside global pop-music phenomena. At that moment, the only YouTube videos ever to have accumulated more views in their first 24 hours were music videos from BTS, specifically "Butter" and "Dynamite", positioning the GTA VI trailer as the third-most-viewed video on YouTube within a 24-hour window in the platform's entire history and the highest-ranked non-music video by a wide margin (Carpenter, 2023; Zwiezen, 2023). The trailer also became the most-liked video game trailer ever, with 8.9 million likes accumulated in the same window (Carpenter, 2023).
The momentum did not slow. Within 48 hours, the trailer surpassed the lifetime view count of Grand Theft Auto V's 2011 reveal trailer, reaching 101 million views. By January 2024 the count exceeded 168 million, making it the second-most-viewed game trailer in YouTube history, and by November 2025 the figure stood at approximately 268 million views (Wikipedia contributors, 2026).
Polygon's reporting framed the 93-million view milestone as a watershed moment for video game marketing, emphasising the trailer's position as the third-most-viewed YouTube video in any 24-hour window ever recorded. The outlet noted that the trailer's success effectively redefined the scale at which interactive-entertainment launches could compete with global music releases for cultural attention, and tracked the proliferation of fan recreations including a brickfilm rendition and various live-action remakes that further amplified the cultural footprint (Carpenter, 2023).
Kotaku, through Zack Zwiezen's coverage, focused on both the early leak and the official release's record-breaking performance. Zwiezen documented how Rockstar's decision to release the official trailer roughly 15 hours ahead of schedule was a direct response to the unauthorised Twitter leak, and connected the trailer's astronomical viewership numbers to the years of accumulated franchise anticipation following the 2013 release of Grand Theft Auto V and the September 2022 hack-and-leak incident. Kotaku also tracked the trailer's most-liked game trailer status with 8.9 million likes (Zwiezen, 2023).
GameSpot's coverage compiled comparative data placing the 93-million figure in historical context, highlighting that no non-music YouTube video had ever come close to those numbers within a 24-hour window. The outlet reported on the secondary effects of the trailer release, including Take-Two Interactive's brief share-price reaction and the rapid spike in Spotify streams of featured song "Love Is a Long Road" by Tom Petty, which saw a near-37,000% increase in streams within days of the trailer's release (Williams, 2023).
The 93-million-view 24-hour milestone served as a definitive demonstration that Grand Theft Auto VI anticipation had transcended gaming-industry boundaries to become a mainstream cultural event. Several publishers reportedly reorganised release calendars in response, with analyst Jason Schreier subsequently characterising the surrounding strategic manoeuvring as "a massive game of 4D chess playing out across the entire video-game industry" (Wikipedia contributors, 2026). The Tom Petty song featured in the trailer experienced a roughly 37,000% Spotify streaming increase and ranked second on the worldwide iTunes chart, while Shazam recorded almost 250,000 searches for the track (Wikipedia contributors, 2026).
The 93-million-view performance in 24 hours stands as one of the most consequential single events in video-game marketing history. By eclipsing every non-music video ever uploaded to YouTube within a comparable window and ranking only behind two BTS music releases globally, the GTA VI Trailer 1 launch validated more than a decade of accumulated anticipation and re-established Rockstar Games as the singular cultural force in interactive entertainment. The synchronised coverage from Polygon, Kotaku, and GameSpot framed the moment not merely as a Rockstar Games triumph but as evidence that the video-game industry could now command audience attention on the same scale as the world's biggest music and film releases.
Carpenter, N. (2023) 'GTA 6 trailer breaks YouTube record with 93 million views in 24 hours', Polygon, 6 December. Available at: https://www.polygon.com/ (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
Williams, M. (2023) 'GTA 6 trailer becomes third-most-viewed YouTube video in 24 hours', GameSpot, 6 December. Available at: https://www.gamespot.com/ (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
Wikipedia contributors (2026) 'Grand Theft Auto VI', Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_VI (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
Zwiezen, Z. (2023) 'Grand Theft Auto VI's first trailer drops early after leak', Kotaku, 4 December. Available at: https://kotaku.com/gta-vi-gta6-first-trailer-gameplay-footage-details-leak-1851005265 (Accessed: 14 May 2026).