Take-Two Talks Franchise Fatigue

If there’s any constant in the gaming world, it’s that players can anticipate a new Call of Duty game every year. Similarly, the Assassin’s Creed family gets a new addition annually, as does do several other AAA franchises.

However, one company is not going to follow in their footsteps. At the MKM Partners Investor Day, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick emphasized that they have no interest in releasing big franchises like Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption in a yearly basis. “We think with the non-sports titles, we are better served to create anticipation and demand," he said. "On the one hand to rest the title and on the other hand to have the highest quality in the market, which takes time. You can't do that annually."

Luckily for Take-Two, they have enough titles to be able to stagger their releases more widely. They don’t care if one title is annualized when they have enough to release multiple new titles per year. "We'll have a handful of really great franchises and new intellectual properties that together really have the economic impact of an annualized business without the detriments of an annualized business,” he suggested.

Some people look at games like Call of Duty and see burned out developers and a franchise that declines in quality with every release, and that's precisely why Take-Two wants to give its permanent franchises a much needed break in between releases.