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Developing console games is becoming an increasingly risky and expensive business, GTA 5 publisher Take-Two has suggested.
Despite GTA 5 having become one of the most successful and profitable games of all time following its 2013 release, Take-Two has warned the industry’s movements are creating “a barrier of entry” into the sector.
"It's an expensive business, and the risk profile reflects that," Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said speaking with Bloomberg TV.
While the success rates of AAA games far exceed those of Hollywood movies – from the 80 per cent to the 30 per cent range – the money needed to achieve this success is growing.
“Those very expensive production, marketing, overhead, and in the case of sports titles, licensing, they do create a risk profile," Zelnikc said.
He added: “From our point of view it embeds the winners even further. It actually creates a barrier to entry in our business."
Highlighting his point, the Take-Two head suggested that developers now “cannot get in without having a couple hundred high quality engineers and artists, loads of capital and lots of money to market the title.”
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Despite Zelnick’s reservations about the increasingly money driven business that is the games industry, Take-Two and Rockstar recently confirmed plans for GTA 6 are already underway.
“We don’t know what GTA 6 will be, but we’ve got some ideas, Rockstar President Leslie Benzies stated earlier this month.
He added: “It comes from the idea first. Where is it going to be set is the first question. Then that defines the missions; you’re doing different things in LA than in New York or Miami. The map and story get worked up together, and the story is a basic flow of how it works out so you can layer the missions in.”
