Rockstar Games Owner On Selling Offline And Online Modes Separately
Paolo Sirio
As you might’ve noticed regarding this generation, Rockstar Games has fundamentally changed the way it generates profit. They build single-player games and then add a massive multiplayer portion that continues for years and years.
GTA Online is exceptionally successful in doing so if you consider not only the microtransactions and the copies sold. There’s also the fact the game reached peak active user engagement only last week following the launch of the Diamond Casinò expansion. Red Dead Online is stretching its legs.
CEO Strauss Zelnick said a few months ago that Take-Two’s games could become shorter in the future. During the latest meeting, Zelnick got asked if the company is considering the idea of splitting single-player and multiplayer portions to sell them separately.
“We’re open-minded about any business model, but I think our current business model is very receptive to the needs of consumers and also speaks to the needs of the producing organization and our creative folks,” said Zelnick, via Twinfinite.
Zelnick seems to understand that such a model could be even more profitable for the publisher. However, players could be disappointed in paying for a game and then paying once again for what they could feel like an expansion to it just for the sake of playing online.
“Whenever you’re trying to assess whether a particular business model works for entertainment, look for that intersection of what’s good first and foremost for the consumer, and then secondly, what’s good for the producer and the distributor,” Zelnick said. “You’ll have to find the sweet spot that encompasses both of those things, or you’ll have an unstable environment.”
From the looks of it, things won’t change that much in the future as Take-Two, and subsidiaries like Rockstar Games, have found that sweet spot. They keep consumers happy, and they continue to make record profits each release.
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