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Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick says the publisher will continue to launch multiple triple-A boxed games a year, despite the rapid growth of its digital business.
For its second financial quarter, Take-Two revealed that 39 per cent of its revenue comes from digital content – primarily driven by Grand Theft Auto Online.
The multiplayer mode of the two-year-old title is still generating millions of dollars every single month via micro-transactions.
Yet Zelnick says this hasn’t changed the firm’s strategy, and there will be no reduction in the number of big games coming from its studios.
We need to be there for the consumer, we need to meet the consumer’s interest,” he told MCV.
World of Warcraft shows that there are certain titles with a persistent world that can generate engagement and therefore revenue for long periods of time. But that’s a very different model to our model.
We aren’t blessed by having that IP here, and we are still operating based on building very significant, exciting high-quality releases and then continuing to engage with titles after release. I wouldn’t rule out a change in that business model over time. Lord knows our business model round here has changed materially in the last five years. We have to be where the consumer is. But, right now, still making new iterations of existing franchises and creating new IP will continue to be our model for some time to come.”
When asked if the number of gamers still playing titles like GTA Online so long after launch is potentially damaging for the overall games business, Zelnick answered: It’s potentially damaging if your strategy is to put out a big array of moderate-quality titles, and there are companies who have that strategy.
Our strategy, ever since we took over the company, has been a limited number of the highest-quality releases. Even if that means we need to postpone putting something out, even though we don’t like to, in order to achieve high quality. Everytime we do that, we’re gratified by the results.”
