Take-Two not convinced by triple-A free-to-play

The CEO of Take-Two has expressed scepticism about the potential of publishers to make significant money from triple-A free-to-play games.

"I’m not psyched about a business where three per cent of your customers pay you, which is what you’re dealing with," Strauss Zelnick said at the Credit Suisse Technology Conference, as reported by GamesIndustry.

"I’m sceptical that for very high-end products, that’s the way the business goes. I think you’ll continue to sell those high-end products as the entry point, and then you’ll have in-game monetization for certain sold items and free items.

[But] if that’s the way the business evolves, as long as we can get paid and make a profit doing it, we’re happy to contemplate it."

At the same event Zelnick predicted that PS4 and Xbox One will overtake the install bases boasted by their predecessors within five years.

Zelnick’s F2P comments echo similar statements made by EA’s Patrick Soderlund, who told MCV last month: Will console games be free-to-play going forward? There will be some games that will be free-to-play but I also think that they will be different in nature to full games.

I think a lot of people prefer to pay for the full game and get access to everything. And I wouldn’t use the word free-to-play – they are not free. I think all these business models will co-exist. Some prefer to pay $60 and get the full experience.”