Last Monday, Take-Two Interactive summed up the results of the 2022 financial year. The successes were announced and the future plans of the company were revealed. From the array of published information, we must note Grand Theft Auto 6, Grand Theft Auto 5, Grand Theft Auto Online, Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy—The Definitive Edition and GTA+ subscription.
As a public company, Take-Two Interactive is required to hold a web or teleconference every quarter. Financial (fiscal year) year – the period of submission of financial statements. Often it does not coincide with the traditional year.
The Take-Two Interactive conference was attended on the one hand by the publisher’s management (CEO – Strauss Zelnick, president – Karl Slatoff, CFO – Lainie Goldstein and senior vice president of investor relations – Nicole Shevins (Nicole Shevins)), and on the investor side, fifteen representatives of large banks.
Having studied conference transcriptas well as Take-Two’s published documents, bring you only the most important details.
Grand Theft Auto 6
Of course, the release of the next part of GTA worries not only fans of the game, but investors. One of them asked Zelnik about the size of the potential audience for Grand Theft Auto 6 and its release on ninth generation gaming systems (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch and cloud gaming platforms).
So, Rockstar Games hasn’t talked about any details of the next Grand Theft Auto game at all. [Скоро] there will be more information. But I have no doubt that when this moment comes, and there will be another iteration [GTA 6]which we will release to a very reliable market.” © Strauss Zelnik
The representative of the investor from Bank of America was not satisfied with the answer, and tried to enter from the other side. He asked if there was a dependency on the increase in development costs for major games like Grand Theft Auto 6, or if the costs were smoothly spread over the schedule.
The word was taken by the CFO of the publisher Leini Holstein. He evasively replied that there are a lot of games in their development pipeline, and the costs do not depend on the costs.
In fact, this is all that we managed to learn from the published documents. No specifics, only general phrases about the future part of GTA. So let’s trust the words of Zelnik and wait for the Rockstar Games press release.
Grand Theft Auto 5
Over the past three months The number of copies sold GTA 5 has exceeded the mark of over 165 million, and the publisher hopes to continue this trend. Yes, the old five, released in 2013, feels good.
Total sales of games in the Grand Theft Auto series exceeded 375 million copies.
Grand Theft Auto Online
Multiplayer will continue to receive content updates. It is predicted that in the current year, the activity of GTA Online and Red Dead Online players in the field of purchases of in-game currency and items will gradually decrease. Switching players’ interest to other entertainment projects is cited as the reason.
“A pot of Shark cards and gold bars” starting to run out?
Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy—The Definitive Edition
Mobile versions of GTA Trilogy for Android and iOS, which were supposed to appear in the first half of 2022, have been postponed to an unknown date.
Note that Take-Two took into account the errors of the previous report, and skillfully hid the number of copies sold of the spent re-release of the GTA trilogy. And in general, they did not focus on the “quality” release.
GTA+ Subscription
Seeing the predatory and inhuman ways of monetizing old games, some players joked that we would soon be subscribing to GTA. In April 2022, Rockstar Games introduced the GTA+ subscription. For six dollars a month, the player is offered a cash bonus and an ever-changing collection of in-game items.
As it turned out, Take-Two was absolutely delighted with the conversion of the implemented monetization model, and they plan to implement it on a permanent basis.
“Consumers love the ability to interact with GTA Online and appreciate what we offer through a subscription.” © Strauss Zelnik
In general, the GTA community has been negative about the introduction of GTA+ for an older game. Perhaps Take-Two has its own special focus group that favors various profit-making ploys?
Take-Two Interactive and its numbers
Net sales for the year grew by 4% to $3.504 billion and exceeded the publisher’s forecasts. Rockstar Games accounted for 30%.
At the end of the day, 72% ($2.529 billion) comes from consoles, 16% ($572 million) comes from PC, and 12% ($403 million) comes from mobile games.
Over the next three years, T2 plans to introduce 69 games that are in development.
Finally, 91% are digital sales and only 9% are physical sales.
As final news, a little consolation pill for Red Dead Redemption 2 fans. Strauss Zelnick commented to the gaming publication IGN situation with the lack of new content for Red Dead Online: “I heard disappointment [поклонников]it’s flattering that they want more content, and more will be said about Red Dead Online’s online updates in due course.”.
A few hours later, the T2 press service clarified that they were talking about online servers. It’s great, right?
PS Curious GTA fans can download Take-Two Interactive Q4 2022 financial report archive – 6.25 Mb, 7zip.
Source: gta.com.ua