90 million of GTA V copies in stores; micro-transactions as a gold mine of Take-Two Interactive
Take-Two Interactive is the company that shared information regarding earnings in the third quarter of 2018 fiscal year. Nearly one third of its revenues are generated by micro-transactions, mostly from GTA Online. The sporting games such as WWE 2K18 and NBA 2K18 were successful as well.Take-Two Interactive, the publisher of Grand Theft Auto series as well as many other titles, revealed earnings in the third quarter of fiscal year 2018, finished in December 31st. There are no surprises: GTA V together with its online addition still bring lots of profits. Microtransactions are still a gold mine, and the idea of video games as services is not going anywhere.
In the above-mentioned quarter, Take-Two Interactive recorded a revenue of 480 million dollars. Nearly one third of this amount is due to the “expenses of returning customers” – great name, which in practice means micro-transactions, subscriptions, DLCs, and any other additional content. Lately, microtransactions are a gold mine for the company: their shares in profits increased by 64% in just one year.
The publisher doesn’t hide that their goal is to implement this kind of transaction model into every game they release: as Laine Goldstein, the financial director of the company, claims. Take-Two Interactive is currently focusing on the “expenses of returning clients”. In other words, you can be sure that in Red Dead Redemption 2, there will be plenty of micro-transactions, and it won’t end on the sandbox set in the Wild West. Strauss Zelnick, the head of the company, tries to calm down all the concerned that: “We focus on the players, not on payers". According to him, free content is also very important in the process of making the game noteworthy. Then, as we read, “monetization will take care of itself”.
Zelnick surely knows what he is talking about – after all his company released Grand Theft Auto V, the title that gained millions of profits since 2013. Even though the production will soon be 5 years old, it still keep going – up to this moment there were 90 millions of copies on various platforms, what makes this production one of the most popular positions in the history of interactive entertainment.
Thanks to GTA Online, which is constantly being updated, there is no signs that the popularity of the game will decrease. On the contrary, in December 2017, the title beat its own record when it comes to the number of players online in one month. No wonder that the upcoming Red Dead Redemption 2 will also provide us with online module – it is just a golden goose.
In addition, Take-Two Interactive shared information regarding less popular productions from their portfolio. Both NBA 2K18 and WWE 2K18 appeared to be great successes – first of these titles, despite its controversies regarding aggressive micro-transactions, has so far sold in the amount of 8 million of copies and it has a chance to become the biggest commercial success among sports games released by the company. As for the second one, there are no detailed information but we were assured that WWE brand is still popular and it will most likely be continued. What’s more, Take-Two Interactive assured that another instalment of “one of the biggest series in 2K catalogue” (it is probably still not announced Borderlands 3) is on the way.