Thank goodness it’s a sunny day out there because Strauss Zelnick brought some serious shade for the industry to Baird’s 2019 Global Consume, Technology, & Services Conference this week. According to GIbiz’s report, the Take-Two boss – you’ll recall it owns Rockstar Games – argued that free-to-play games don’t have any impact on paid games being successful. If you, an MMORPG player, are currently opening your mouth to object, know that Zelnick is using Fortnite as his example, and he believes Fortnite had no impact on Take-Twos big games like GTAO and Red Dead Redemption 2.
“I’m occasionally asked, ‘Is the Fortnite effect affecting the industry?’ And the answer is, Fortnite never affected the industry. Fortnite didn’t affect us in the least. We had huge hits when Fortnite was in the market, because Fortnite is different from our titles, and our titles are different than Fortnite. […] I don’t believe for a minute that simply being available in one business model means something that is completely different can’t be available in another business model. There is no need for any entertainment property. If there’s no movie you want to see, you don’t watch any movies. And if there are a number of movies you want to see, you try to find a way to watch them all. But they don’t fill up a need – the need doesn’t exist in absence of something you want. […] So that’s why when people said, ‘Is Fortnite crowding out other titles?’ No, not in the least. I think some companies point at Fornite as sort of an excuse for why their titles didn’t do well. But our view is, when titles are great, they do well, and when they’re not as good, they don’t do well…Put out something really great in entertainment, and people will show up for it.”
Meanwhile, this week’s game update is live, with the storm flip item, weapon tweaks, and UI adjustments, while creative mode gets the new Pueblo theme and new canyon island.
