Who isn’t hyped for VR? Apparently Strauss Zelnick, the CEO of Take-Two Entertainment isn’t. Speaking at the Cowen and Company Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, he stated that VR is simply too expensive for most people and that he doesn’t think there is a market for a “$2000 entertainment device that requires you to dedicate a room to the activity”. Were you hoping for a virtual reality GTA? Yeah, sorry about that.
According to Gamespot, Zelnick opined that Americans don’t have a full room dedicated to entertainment activity, and that they prefer to spend $300 on an entertainment device, with room for a screen, a couch and controllers. He states that there are “any number of constraints” when it comes to virtual reality taking of – an opinion not uncommon amidst other businessmen in the video games industry. That said, Zelnick isn’t being a total downer about things, “I’m not unexcited,” he says, before adding that “There are impediments.”
Zelnick’s opinion has been steady for a few years now – in 2014, he described virtual reality devices as “anti-social” (via PC Gamer) and that they might appeal only to a core crowd as opposed to the larger, casual audience that enjoys playing games in a social way. Of course, with him being the CEO of Take-Two, this means it’s very unlikely that we’re going to see any virtual reality games from either the Rockstar Games (GTA, Red Dead Redemption, L.A. Noire) or 2K Games (Civilization, XCOM, Mafia, Borderlands) labels. That’s a shame, because I could really go for a virtual reality game of Civilization.