European game, European audience.

GTA is how we imagine America is. We're comfortable with that :p

But the US is a bigger gaming market than Europe. 

Only the best GTA.

Anyway, on previous gen I believe GTA5 sold better in the US. I guess the games that came out late last year weren't of Europeans taste.

I bought GTA4 and most of my friends did. Loved it and liberty city. I didn't buy GTA 5 and almost all of my friends didn't either. I asked a couple why and they said they are tired of the whole GTA thing. It was neat 6 years ago causing chaos and buying hookers in a game world, but time has went by and they outgrew it. They still play the CoDs and the like because they don't really see it as a way of violently shooting people. Its a competitive multiplayer game.

Market growth? There's no real explanation IMO. Just that the console market has grown a lot more in Europe than US.

Maybe because it is a European game?

Because it's not fps?

GTA is a satire about the American Dream so that maybe has something to do with it. I also have a theory that because it's banned in some places like the Middle East all the sales there get added to Europe.

Because the PS4 dominates Europe on the console side this gen, and let's be honest, what else are PS4 gamers going to buy right now? GTAV re-release was the PS4's biggest holiday release aside from the yearly COD and AC games, and we know Europe just hates them some COD right?

Except they don't... right now Advanced Warfare and GTAV's sales are neck and neck in Europe on the PS4... and they're also the two best selling PS4 games aside from FIFA '15, which is the Madden NFL of Europe, and both CODAW and GTAV have outsold NA versions on PS4.

In fact... the best selling PS4 exclusive World Wide and soon to be in Europe too is TLOU, yet another re-released and remastered PS3 game lol. The best selling PS4-only exclusive in Europe is actually Killzone:Shadow Fall, which is (surprise surprise) yet another FPS! The next best selling PS4 exclusive is inFamous Second Son, which has yet to break 1 mil in any region, and has sold 25% more in FPS loving 'murica than in enlightened and sophisticated Europe.

If we compare sales to last gen version of GTA5, they aren't super different. GTA5 was more popular in Europe on last gen consoles despite the fact the hd market was much bigger in the USA.

The difference is a bit bigger now probably because the ps4 has a much bigger marketshare percentage in Europe than the ps3 did so the ps4 GTA5 bundle had a bigger effect in Europe.

GTA 5 on last gen consoles sold around 13.9mil in the USA PS3/360 sold 70mil in the USA
GTA 5 on last gen consoles sold around 14.0mil in Europe PS3/360 sold 59mil in Europe

GTA 5 on this gen consoles sold around 2.7mil in the USA PS4/XB1 sold 13.2mil in the USA
GTA 5 on last gen consoles sold around 3.4mil in Europe PS4/XB1 sold 10.2mil in the USA

The short explanation is EU has different taste in games.

The biased explanation is EU has better taste in games.

The long explanation is GTA has a longer history on PlayStation, which leads to higher attach rate on PlayStation, and PlayStation has a higher % of the market in Europe.