Take-Two CEO: MMOs don't work in the US

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Filed under: Business Models, MMO Industry, Miscellaneous

The good news: Take-Two Interactive chairman and CEO Strauss Zelnick says that the company that brought you BioShock, Borderlands, Red Dead Redemption, and the GTA series is "actively investing in online and MMOs." The bad news: He adds, "We're just not doing it in the U.S."

Speaking at the Cowen and Company Technology, Media and Telecom Conference on Thursday, Zelnick reinforces what he believes many studios are learning the hard way, "MMOs don't work here. A couple of our competitors have found out that through very, very expensive lessons. One of our competitors just recently announced they're restarting an MMO project."

Take-Two is, instead, aiming at the Asian MMO market through partnerships with industry leaders such as Tencent and Nexon. This is where the company hopes to be successful in the genre, as Zelnick cites "10 to 20" MMOs are successful in that market.

[Thanks to Avaloner81 for the tip!]Take-Two CEO: MMOs don't work in the US originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 31 May 2013 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Source: Polygon
  

Oh really now?

Wasn't GMS doing well enough in the past, before they went completely to gamble-to-win mode and drove away many of their middle-class customers?

Continuing on the "Oh you don't say" kinda theme:

[video=youtube;1zdWC9rHWmk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zdWC9rHWmk[/video]

Because the Asian market itself isn't already fully saturated with MMO's...

Brilliant.

GMS would be doing a whole lot better if they made cash items more affordable. The more game changing expensive NX items they release, the more people quit.

Started with cubes, a bunch of people quit when miracle cubes came out, and then they added super cubes, and then they add special protection scrolls for new level 150 items. And so on and so forth.

And it's not like Nexon has some sort of stock they must buy and resell from a manufacturer, it's freaking pixels they design themselves and sell it off. If all prices were 60% less than what they are right now, they probably would be profiting more and more players may be active. Not sure why they never considered experimenting it for a few months but it's kinda too late now.

Problem isn't that MMO's can't be profitable.

The problem is with the mindframe of American game companies: If it can't make hundreds upon millions a year its not worth it. Its either go big or go home.

GMS would be doing a whole lot better if they made cash items more affordable. The more game changing expensive NX items they release, the more people quit.

Started with cubes, a bunch of people quit when miracle cubes came out, and then they added super cubes, and then they add special protection scrolls for new level 150 items. And so on and so forth.

And it's not like Nexon has some sort of stock they must buy and resell from a manufacturer, it's freaking pixels they design themselves and sell it off. If all prices were 60% less than what they are right now, they probably would be profiting more and more players may be active. Not sure why they never considered experimenting it for a few months but it's kinda too late now.

Don't forget giving overall better service. If bugs, hacking and exploiting are rampant in the game and the company does nothing for months, I don't feel like rewarding them with my money. The company needs to earn their profit, players can protest bad service by boycotting, unfortunately most people in MS do complain about Nexon, but are so addicted to pixel goodies that the next day they've already forgot Nexon's latest screw up and happily walk into Walmart for their weekly NX-fix.

That picture is hilarious.

Pretty sure MMOs are increasing in popularity as the free to play model is starting to catch on here and the console market is beginning to decline. (Don't think PS4 is going to do that much better than Wii U. Not with all the companies releasing PS3 versions of PS4 games towards the launch.)