Take-Two Interactive, the company that publishers Grand Theft Auto 5 and Red Dead Redemption (under the Rockstar label), has made it clear that they are not interested in annualised, “milked” versions of their properties, unlike, say, Activision or Ubisoft.
Take-Two president Karl Slatoff was at a business presentation in New York when he was asked about why the company’s brands are not annualised. His reply was that this is to avoid franchise fatigue, and to make the bran viable for longer. He later says, “It’s tempting to have continuous releases and milk a franchise as far as you can, [but] we’ve seen that fatigue in other franchises in the games industry. With almost every single franchise for us, the latest release is bigger than the one before.”
This does not come as a surprise to observers of the company’s release scheduling. Both the Rockstar Games and 2K Games labels choose to release their games well-cooked, and after a few years in development. The comment on franchise fatigue particularly echoes concerns with Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed franchise, which has gone on hiatus for a year.
Do you agree with Slatoff in that Take-Two’s properties should not be annualised? Let us know in the comments below.