Yesterday, Take-Two Interactive released its FY2018 second quarter results, where we learned that GTA 5 is the best-selling videogame of all time in the US. A coinciding conference call with company chairman and CEO Strauss Zelnick also provided some interesting commentary on the direction of the publisher, and its plans to pursue microtransactions into the future.
As reported by Gamasutra, Zelnick outlines Take-Two’s desire to enforce microtransactions—”recurrent consumer spending opportunities,” as he refers to them—in every game going forward.
“The business, once upon a time, was a big chunky opportunity to engage for tens of hours, or perhaps a hundred hours. That has turned into ongoing engagement,” says Zelnick. “Day after day, week after week. You fall in love with these titles, and they become part of your daily life.
“We’ve said that we aim to have recurrent consumer spending opportunities for every title that we put out at this company. It may not always be an online model, it probably won’t always be a virtual currency model, but there will be some ability to engage in an ongoing basis with our titles after release across the board.”
Zelnick continues, pointing to a “sea of change” in the business of Take-Two that saw recurrent consumer spending make up 42 percent of its “net bookings” in the last financial quarter.
Zelnick adds: “One of the things we’ve learned is if we create a robust opportunity, and a robust world, in which people can play delightfully in a bigger and bigger way, that they will keep coming back. They will engage. And there is an opportunity to monetize that engagement. There’s a lot of room for growth. This is just the beginning.”