Is $69.99 too much to pay for a video game these days? For Take-Two, the answer to that would probably be a hard “no.”
Speaking to investors in an earnings call last week, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick explained that GTA, one of the publisher’s most successful franchises, actually represents one of the best values on today’s games market, and not only that, if the executive had his way, he’d probably charge gamers even more, having alluded to the idea that game prices should be based on how much entertainment they provide per hour.
Here’s what Zelnick, who seemingly made $42.1 million in FY2023, had to share about what would apparently be more of an ideal pricing model for games:
In terms of our pricing for any entertainment property, basically the algorithm is the value of the expected entertainment usage, which is to say the per hour value times the number of expected hours plus the terminal value that’s perceived by the customer in ownership, if the title is owned rather than rented or subscribed to.
By that standard our prices are still very, very low, because we offer many hours of engagement, the value of the engagement is very high. So I think the industry as a whole offers a terrific price to value opportunity for consumers.
Zelnick’s comments came on the heels of an announcement from Rockstar Games about how the first trailer for GTA VI would finally surface next month as part of the company’s 25th anniversary:
…Rockstar Games was founded on the idea that video games could come to be as essential to culture as any other form of entertainment, and we hope that we have created games you love in our efforts to be part of that evolution.
We are very excited to let you know that in early December, we will release the first trailer for the next Grand Theft Auto.
Rockstar Games was founded in 1998, around a year after the release of the original GTA game from DMA Design, published by BMG Interactive.
There’s no indication of how much entertainment value GTA VI will ultimately provide yet, but if it’s anything like the previous game, players can expect over 80 hours of enjoyment.