Grand Theft Auto is a huge event whenever a new entry in the series is released, and publisher Take-Two Interactive plans to keep it that way.
While titles like Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed are annualized, as a new entry for each title is released once a year, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick revealed why the company refuses to join in on the trend.
“The market asks us, ‘Why don’t you annualize your titles?’ We think with the non-sports titles, we are better served to create anticipation and demand,” he said. “On the one hand to rest the title and on the other hand to have the highest quality in the market, which takes time. You can’t do that annually.”
Zelnick added that games like Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption are not annualized so that when they hit store shelves, they are “massive consumer events.”
“What we would like to do is be able to have enough hit intellectual properties in any given year, whether we have Title A or Title B, is not the issue,” he said. “We’ll have a handful of really great franchises and new intellectual properties that together really have the economic impact of an annualized business without the detriments of an annualized business.”