Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick announced that the Grand Theft Auto series has reached 125 million units shipped. According to Zelnick, the franchise continues to be popular in part because of long waits between incarnations, in contrast to annual franchises like Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed.
“Grand Theft Auto has the highest quality of any title, which is why it is the standard-bearer in the business. It’s why it’s sold 125 million units,” said Zelnick. “I would argue that saying to people ‘make a perfect-rated title that’s the standard bearer in the business and do it on this every-other-year schedule’ not only isn’t realistic, but it also runs the risk of taking a very special franchise and making it less special.”
“That’s never been the case with one of ours,” he said. “Ours do better each time. Our view is it’s hard to make permanent intellectual properties if you annualize it, with the exception of sports titles. So far that’s proven to be the case. IP that is annualized eventually seems to hit the wall and we don’t want our IP to hit the wall.”
