Take Two Doesn’t Believe In Free-To-Play

Most publishers are moving steadily towards free-to-play; some even believe that it will be the dominant model in the near future. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick certainly doesn’t share that enthusiasm.

Take Two is known for its large open world franchises such as Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption and BioShock. Needless to say, those games are among the industry’s highest development budgets.

“I’m not psyched about a business where 3 percent of your customers pay you, which is what you’re dealing with,” the CEO put it quite simply.

Zelnick isn’t confident that free-to-play is enough to support such games; however he is open to exploring it as an extra monetization stream.

“If that’s the way the business evolves, as long as we can get paid and make a profit doing it, we’re happy to contemplate it,” he told the audience at the Credit Suisse Technology Conference.

“I’m skeptical that for very high-end products, that’s the way the business goes. I think you’ll continue to sell those high-end products as the entry point, and then you’ll have in-game monetization for certain sold items and free items.”