Take Two Interactive will add microtransactions to their new titles

Gaming industry is much faster than before and sometimes it can be scary. Both the in-game features and the economy world outside of the games themselves are changing drastically. These changes can be good or they can disgust gamers because of the greedy approach of the companies. Is it a natural process? I guess so. The only think that I’m sure of is that gaming industry is going somewhere kind of… interesting. And I don’t know what to expect anymore.

Nowadays, one of the biggest questions out there in the gaming industry is probably the question of ‘microtransactions.’ The money making potential of this mechanism is not even something to think over anymore. From the biggest RPG titles to the FPS games, every single news we have will probably cover this idea from now on. Is this a bad thing? So far, yes. But it doesn’t have to be a bad thing if you can feel that the company is not trying to, as people put it, ‘milk you’. Even though it is not that common, we can see a couple of companies that deserve our trust. Will it be the same for every one of them? Most probably not. But we will see this in the future.

Anyways, the main story is not about this. Take-Two Interactive has recently announced that they wanted to implement microtransactions to their new games. During a conference call with investors – which we can present to you thanks to Gamasutra – Strauss Zelnick, the CEO of Take-Two Interactive explained the situation.

We’ve said that we aim to have recurrent consumer spending opportunities for every title that we put out at this company. It may not always be an online model, it probably won’t always be a virtual currency model, but there will be some ability to engage in an ongoing basis with our titles after release across the board […]

It is clear that the company is going towards a different direction. Personally, I think this transition is inevitable. Especially if you put the fact that the company made huge money from their games like GTA Online. However, this is a dangerous zone as it can turn out to be a disaster if they do not listen to their fans and become too greedy. Ehm… we have a couple of examples eh? But the CEO of the company explained the reasoning behind it.

One of the things we’ve learned is if we create a robust opportunity, and a robust world, in which people can play delightfully in a bigger and bigger way, that they will keep coming back. They will engage. And there is an opportunity to monetize that engagement. There’s a lot of room for growth. This is just the beginning.

We really hope that this transition will work out for both sides. This will change a lot, of course. But as one of the biggest video game company, Take-Two Interactive will have to take careful steps. Time will tell what’s going to happen. But let’s keep our hopes alive shall we?

So, until the next time we hear from the gaming industry, stay tuned.