GS:Virtual currency and microtransactions are hot-button issues in gaming today, and now Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Grand Theft Auto parent publisher Take-Two Interactive, has spoken out to defend his company's implementation of such measures in its games.
Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick joins 'Money Movers' to discuss the company's quarterly earnings results, how confident Zelnick is in the guidance for fall 2025, and much more.
Take-Two head honcho Strauss Zelnick states every time they establish a price, they want to make sure it's "good news for consumers."
It's the why we close servers after 2 years, why we re-use the same assets every year, and why we bundle our game with enjoyable microtransactions.
Re-using assets is not a bad thing tbh. Development is all about re-using code, assets and components.
Can you please focus on delivering enough quality content to justify the $70 asking price? While I appreciate the idea of over-delivering, it's essential to ensure that the base content itself is worth it. I have concerns that GTA6 might have less single-player content because most of the focus seems to be shifting towards online play and microtransactions
The sleaze oozes out of these gaming CEOs faces. It's honestly disturbing how distorted people look when you've realized how money obsessed they really are. He gives off "in one ear and straight out the other" vibes.
I really don't get it
like
do they think anyone believes what they say?
is it that being in charge surrounds you by so many yesmen that they get deluded into thinking everyone is like that?
Well if you look at the last 10 years you will notice there wasn't as single paid dlc. Every update was free whether you want to complain about sharkcards or not.
They're going to make billions on this game especially if they keep the same formula as last in regards to updates.
Selling Shark cards and removing content are not exactly "good news for consumers" lol.
The last time they released any DLC worth playing was 15 years ago.
GTA V is so broken and unbalanced that people would rather do stupid cringey stunts with than do heists.
I'm sure the player base would disagree, and gta5 is still being supported, much longer then most games, after all I bought gta5 day 1 on ps3....
Take-Two head Strauss Zelnick has denied closing Rollerdrome developer Roll7 or Kerbal Space Program 2 studio Intercept Games.
That's hilarious because he did and said the same thing with 2K Marin who developed Bioshock 2
They've been closed since 2013 but not officially acknowledged
He just doesn't want the backlash so pretends there's no issue.
NBA 2K14 is the prime example of everything wrong with VC/Micro..I'm not surprised that [Strauss Zelnick] supports a greedy & wrong practice that brings in more profit for his company.
Just don't...you can't defend them. They should never be put into games like GTA in the first place
The problem was though they reduced the money you got from missions as a way to try and lead you on to buy MT.
I have to disagree here entirely; there is no defending microtransactions and as soon as I read the title of the article, I rolled my eyes and chuckled. The fact of the matter is, microtransactions are nothing to defend as they are not necessary. They are merely a ploy to get customers to spend more money when they shouldn't be asked to.
With Grand Theft Auto Online for example, which seems to be the hottest topic of microtransactions today, Rockstar Games simply wants to make more money without effort; they have succeeded as they earned a revenue close to their earnings from the game itself and they barely did any work to achieve the proceeds of microtransactions. We're expected to exchange real money for virtual currency to essentially play the game it was intended to be played. It's essentially full/lite versions of games; you get access to enough, but unless you plan on paying more money, you won't be able to experience everything the game offers and that is simply unacceptable.
With Grand Theft Auto V, gamers have already paid between $60 and $150 - depending on which edition of the game they purchased - to own the game; being expected to pay more to experience more is scummy and outlandish.
Bottom line: microtransactions need to go.
I really don't hate Microtransactions as much as the typical gamer. I think they CAN work well if implemented well. The problem is, I don't see many good implementations. Take-2's insistence that they 'delight' there consumers stands in contrast to the reality. 2k14 was gimped by MT's and gta online is unfair because of them.
And I thought games were expensive enough it annoys me that they try to extract even more money from their customers. Gamers need to boycott microtransactions on games that are not free to play