Being the parent publisher of Grand Theft Auto 5, Red Dead Redemption 2 and the ongoing NBA 2K series, it’s easy to forget just how many games Take-Two Interactive actually launches. So at their latest quarterly investor call, the gaming conglomerate gave everyone a helpful little reminder.
Take-Two — who also owns the Civilization series and its developers Firaxis, and games like Kerbal Space Program — announced the ambitious plans early Tuesday morning Australian time at their latest earnings call.
Like all listed gaming publishers, Take-Two absolutely smashed it over the Christmas break. And despite being outbid by EA in a battle to acquire Codemasters, things were still looking very rosy.
Take-Two’s recurrent consumer spending — which includes what gamers spend on microtransactions in NBA 2K21, GTA 5 and so on — jumped by 57 per cent, according to the company. So it’s no surprise that, having added more developers, Take-Two wants to release a metric ton of games.
93, to be specific, with 72 of those games being developed for console and PC.
“On a high level, 63 of those titles of the 93 we would consider core gaming experiences; 17 of them are mid-core, arcade style experiences; 13 are what we’d consider casual experiences,” Karl Slatoff, Take-Two president, said.
“About half — 47 of the titles — are from existing IP, or existing sequels, and the rest of them are new intellectual property. And then in terms of platforms, 72 of the 93 titles are planned for console, PC or streaming, including 7 of those that will also be on mobile. So that would leave 21 on the list that will be exclusively on mobile.”
Slatoff went on to add that 26 of those games would be free-to-play, while the rest would be traditional, premium releases. Slatoff did add a caveat to all this though: as is always the case with development, some games might be get cut, while others might be delayed and opportunities might open up for other games that weren’t part of the original pipeline.
Slatoff also added that Take-Two would, much like Activision-Blizzard, be focusing on bringing their existing IP to mobile platforms. Slatoff talked about “companion apps” as well, something that publishers were once hugely excited about.
Investors tried to press the Take-Two board further on their upcoming line, but the executives rebuffed questions, saying they would announce more “in the coming months”.
Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, however, offered some thoughts on what might happen once the world enters a post-COVID phase.
“I think under any circumstances, post-pandemic — and hopefully there will be post-pandemic — demand will be higher than pre-pandemic demand,” Zelnick said. “I think it’s quite clear there’s been a systemic shift in favour of interactive entertainment … but I don’t know whether there’ll be some falloff, as people are out and about doing things outside of the home, but as long as we continue to deliver great experiences I think there’ll be growth,” Zelnick said.
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