As we get closer to Grand Theft Auto 6’s 19th release date, the CEO of Rockstar Games’ parent company, Take-Two Interactive, Strauss Zelnick, has admitted to being scared for the upcoming game’s release. While he noted that he is generally scared about how a game will do any time the company releases a game, he said that, with Grand Theft Auto 6, those fears are a billion times worse.
“I run so scared with regard to all of our releases — just multiply it by a billion this time around,” said Zelnick during the Interactive Innovation Conference, according to Variety. “And I think the minute you stop running scared, you better get a different job if you’re in the entertainment business. Because [if] you claim success before you have it — you will largely be wrong.”
Despite these fears, however, Zelnick has also said that Take-Two Interactive is “blessed” to have the talent it does at its various studios. He also noted that, while the talented development teams continue to work on a game and “deliver a property,” it’s up to the company as a whole to ensure that the marketing and distribution will get the games into as many hands as possible.
“We’re blessed that we have some of the greatest creative talent on earth working inside the four walls of Take-Two and all of our affiliates,” he said. “And I’ve always felt like the way you create hits is to find the most talented people, encourage them to work within your system and then give them unlimited resources — financial, creative, technical and human — to pursue their passion. When that happens and the team delivers a property, it’s in our job as a broader organization to do a better job with worldwide marketing and distribution than anyone else, and then to run a rational business that makes sound decisions with no drama and does it over and over again every day. And so creative independence is a hallmark of creative success.”
At the same conference, Zelnick was also asked about how Take-Two Interactive will decide on the price for Grand Theft Auto 6, since many are expecting it to be the biggest launch in the history of gaming.
“Consumers pay for the value that you bring to them, and our job is to charge way way way less of the value delivery,” Zelnick said. “How you feel about something you buy is the intersection of the thing itself and what you pay for. Consumers need to feel like the thing itself is amazing and the price they were charged was fair for what they got.”
He also made note of how, despite inflation having affected just about every aspect of life, from essentials like food to luxuries like hobbies, the price of games has stayed largely stable.
“If you look at it through that lens, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But that isn’t the lens through which we look. Instead, we look at… how do we deliver something amazing, and how do we make sure that what people pay for it feels very reasonable,” he said.
Grand Theft Auto 6 is being developed for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.