The unstoppable money-making machine that is Grand Theft Auto 5 is alive and well in 2020, and publisher Take-Two is predicting an even stronger year for GTA Online next quarter, the company said on its Q1 earnings call Monday.

Take-Two praised GTA Online's strong performance since last year's Diamond Casino update and its record number of active players, but what is truly surprising is that GTA 5 continues to sell well even after being distributed for free on the Epic Games Store.

"In the six weeks following the Epic Store promotion, Grand Theft Auto 5 sold more units in the same period than in any previous year," said CEO Strauss Zelnick. The week-long free promotion helped GTA Online set a new record for in-game purchases and set a new record for the second highest number of new player registrations since the service launched in 2012.

GTA Online has somehow remained a behemoth for eight years: Rockstar will bring the game to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X next year; on PC, it is hardly surprising that the free distribution will benefit GTA Online user numbers but it is surprising that in the weeks that followed, GTA 5 itself sold better than ever. Zelnick explained to GI.biz that these sales are due to the free distribution "increasing the size of the user base."

According to Zelnick, lifetime sales of "GTA 5" have exceeded 135 million units. In February of this year, it was around 120 million units.