News

Grand Theft Auto series has shipped 125m units, 'no annualisation is key'
Posted: 28.11.2012 14:50 by Simon Priest Comments: 2
Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick has revealed the bulging bicep of Grand Theft Auto's shipping count, which has now reached 125 million units. In September 2011 it was at 114 million.

The ever increasing sales of GTA for each new release is down to 'not annualising' the franchise. For an IP "to be permanent," you need to avoid annual releases, says Zelnick.

Unless your series happens to go by the Call of Duty moniker, he notes. However Black Ops 2 sales are less than Modern Warfare 3, showing a slowdown from IP fatigue.

"It's our view that if you want intellectual property to be permanent, then you run the risk in that circumstance of having consumers fall out of love with that franchise," remarked Zelnick. He praised Activision's Bobby Kotick for delivering "quality product" every year with Call of Duty, but now it seems things are catching up.

Activision "obviously views the world differently," he added.

Sales of the first-person shooter from Infinity Ward and Treyarch aren't speeding up but slowing. “That's never been the case with one of ours,” noted Zelnick. “Ours do better each time. Our view is it's hard to make permanent intellectual property if you annualise it, with the exception of sports titles."

“So far that's proven to be the case. IP that is annualised eventually seems to hit the wall and we don't want our IP to hit the wall.” Analysts readily predict that 2013's Grand Theft Auto V will outstrip GTA IV in sales. Activision has already had quite the public victim of oversaturation with Guitar Hero, which was put to rest after plummeting sales.

While Take-Two stay the course avoiding annualisation of its titan IPs, Square Enix will be adopting the 'Call of Duty model' for the Hitman series bouncing development between IO Interactive and Square's new Montreal studio. Grand Theft Auto V releases on Xbox 360 and PS3 in spring 2013. A petition for a PC release is just shy of 90,000 signatures.

Source: Eurogamer

Comments

By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Nov 28, 2012
SirRoderick
I can only applaud that attitude, since it doesn't just lead to good sales, but more importantly to better games!
By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Nov 28, 2012
herodotus
"you need to avoid annual releases", well that goes without saying particularly for this franchise where if they did, the titles would be basically cut-n-paste. Though they did almost fall into the trap with "Liberty City Stories"....