Strauss Zelnick, the CEO of Take-Two, expects „more regular, shorter” releases. (Which itself is going against something that a Grand Theft Auto title represents, and we can pick ANY GTA title here…)
„I don’t see [Grand Theft Auto Online’s success] expanding further. In fact, I would expect in many instances it may compress. […] Our ability to engage with consumers on an ongoing basis has [resulted in] less pressure on getting to market with an all-new title. But we [want to] find that intersection between the time it takes our creators to do the best work in the industry on the one hand, and what the consumer wants. And we believe in resting titles as a great thing. […] But I think eight years [between new Rockstar titles] is probably too long,” Zelnick said in an interview with GamesIndustry.
So the question is reasonable: how does Take-Two plan to release more games? „It’s possible that games may be a bit shorter than they were in certain instances. It’s possible that the ability to deliver content on an ongoing basis for a long time after an initial release of a hit would mean that perhaps that initial release wouldn’t be as long in terms of number of hours of gameplay as previously had been demanded in a world where that was all you were getting,” he added. In short, Zelnick wants more regular cash cows. We wouldn’t appreciate a shorter Grand Theft Auto VI, though.
„Look, unions tend to develop when labour relations are not typically non-existent, and typically unions have been most beneficial when there were more workers than there were jobs. And where the jobs were low-paying jobs. We have fewer workers than we have jobs, and they’re high-paying jobs. Right now, Take-Two has 500 open positions. There are 220,000 or so people employed in the US video game business. They make about $100,000 on average, maybe more. It’s hard to imagine what would motivate that crew to unionize,” Zelnick added about a potential US developers’ union.
Would it be a better idea for Take-Two to launch shorter games? Let’s just say that even Red Dead Redemption 2 wasn’t a „one afternoon adventure.”
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