author: Gabriela Sicinska
Take-Two's CEO on Pandemic's Impact on Games: „This Change is Permanent”
The pandemic changed the gaming industry forever - Take-Two's CEO Strauss Zelnick commented on the past financial year in an interview with Gameindustry.biz.
- Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two Interactive commented the company's latest financial report;
- According to Zelnick, the pandemic has had a lasting impact on the ever-growing popularity of interactive entertainment;
- Zelnick revealed that Take-Two's games move to the mobile market is planned and will be officially announced in due time.
Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two Interactive, commented the company's financial report published a few days ago, covering the last 12 months. The businessman explained the statement appearing in the report that 'the pandemic has initiated a transformation in the consumption of interactive entertainment'. According to Zelnick, the situation caused by COVID-19 has given the industry a powerful spur, which is not just a temporary trend, but a permanent change in the perception of interactive entertainment.
"Interactive entertainment is now the number one entertainment vertical in terms of revenue, and I guess people still don't fully realize that," Zelnick says. "And a good deal of that growth was driven by people either discovering or rediscovering interactive entertainment and its social aspects during the pandemic. And what we've found is that while certain trends should be expected to moderate, that shift is permanent," said Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two.
Zelnick is certainly satisfied with the fact that due to a significant increase in the amount of free time spent at home over the last pandemic year, more and more people are reaching for interactive entertainment. Among other things, the CEO of Take-Two Interactive pointed to the social aspects of video games, which are becoming an increasingly popular form of human interaction.
"We as consumers, all of us enjoy shared entertainment experiences. That's why we watch movies together, and TV shows together. It's why we go to theme parks together. We're not looking for a solitary experience, and interactive entertainment is the definition of a shared experience, particularly with what technology allows us to do today," Zelnick emphasized.
To confirm his words, Zelnick recalled the projects that Take-Two has been working on in recent months and years. In the name of developing the social aspects of video games, for example, a standalone version of Red Dead Online was released, cheaper than the original RDR 2, enabling the purchase of only the multiplayer module. The next step will be the release of GTA Online for next-gen consoles (announced for November 11, this year), which will also be a standalone title, in addition to being available in a free-to-play model for owners of PlayStation 5.
As one of the next stages of the company's development in the new world marked by the coronavirus pandemic, Zelnick mentioned bringing Take-Two games to mobile devices, following the example of Activision, whose mobile installment of Call of Duty turned out to be a pretty good idea. The CEO of Take-Two did not announce any specific titles, however, he revealed that mobile versions of games are in the plans and will be announced "when the time comes".