https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87dH1H-jF2w
I found watching this fascinating, doing some maths autism on the games market again but looking at the searches and comparing it to the steam data makes you think. The keyword searches are probably a fairly accurate gauge of interest in these games because even with botting it's probably going to account for people looking up things like guides for the games and generally searching it up.
As opposed to steam where yes, people will buy the game in question but then it will be dead as anything if you actually log into the multiplayer or you find it's completely broken and there's something deeply suspicious about the reviews.
I don't understand the popularity of GTA online. That's probably because I haven't experienced it myself, but I did watch videos and it didn't look particularly compelling.
I had a distant friend that was part of a hardcore GTA RP group.
And not hardcore in terms of overtly sexual ERP, but like all day RP with an in-game cashier job and long term relationships (that didn't go outside the RP).
They even had a big irl meetup and it was in fact half/half guys to girls and wide range of ages, instead of the actual children you'd expect.
I feel like even the people who aren't legitimately RPing are still living a bit of a vicarious life through it (which is why teenage boys love the carnage and bling of it) and that's its true key.
Mature themed LARP for normies with a wide variety of game modes through mods?