In Grand Theft Auto V, anything can happen. You can drive a fighter jet. You can parachute into the middle of a street. And you can cause a five-minute-long highway crash with nothing but a motorcycle.
A gamer who uses the pseudonym “Hoosker Don’t” uploaded a video on YouTube of a seemingly-innocuous bike crash he caused that led to a chain-reaction of epic proportions. Among the events that take place in the carnage: beer trucks collide and explode into balls of flames, people who try to escape catch fire instead, and a compact car drives off a cliff into a beach.
It’s reflective of one of the key reasons that has helped Grand Theft Auto V ship over 54 million copies and made it the fourth biggest-selling video game of all time: its open-ended, unpredictable gameplay. Set in the fictional world of San Andreas (which closely resembles Southern California), users have used Reddit, Tumblr, and YouTube to show the craziest moments they’ve seen and played on GTA V.
The game has also boosted recent numbers for the digital games market in the U.S. after it was released for the PC in April. The market grew by 15% compared to the corresponding period last year, climbing to $1.1 billion, after GTA V sold 441,000 copies in the US. The game also helped Take-Two Interactive (TTWO), the parent publisher responsible for GTA V, to revenues of $366.4 million in the first-quarter of this fiscal year, a 142% increase from the previous year.
