Rockstar Games is widely known as the Grand Theft Auto company, a reputation owner Take-Two tried to dispel in its latest presentation to investors by pointing out that Rockstar Games also used to make other stuff like L.A. Noire and Midnight Club.
In addition to reporting its first quarter results yesterday, Take-Two released a 41-page investor presentation outlining the company’s current strategies and growth. One of those strategies? Continuing to make a shit-ton of money off GTA V and Online nearly a decade after they originally released.
But there’s more to Rockstar, the studio behind the eternally lucrative blockbuster, than just open world crime games. “Rockstar Games: Diverse Portfolio of Industry-Leading Intellectual Property,” reads the top of slide 10 (via Twitter user Adam Dorsey). It goes on to detail the success of not just GTA V but also…GTA Online and the GTA series as a whole. Franchises within franchises.
Slide 11 points out that Rockstar also made Red Dead Redemption, stretching the two games released over a decade into a trilogy thanks to the recent standalone release of the multiplayer mode Red Dead Online. Most studios would love to have one critically-acclaimed open series, let alone two. But a testament to experimentation and diversity it is not.
Rounding out this “diverse” portfolio of games about men riding around shooting things is slide 12 which highlights L.A. Noire, Max Payne 3, and Midnight Club: Los Angeles. It doesn’t include dates, but for those keeping track at home, L.A. Noire came out in 2011 and hasn’t seen a sequel outside of 2017’s mini-VR expansion. Max Payne 3 came out in 2012. And despite four separate games and two additional remixes, we haven’t had a new Midnight Club racing game since 2008.
Why do I feel like Rockstar will release another version of GTA before the long-awaited Midnight Club revival arrives?
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