There are numerous misconceptions within the gaming space that persist to this day. One of them happens to be around the use of IP and whether they can function beyond what they were intended to do. In this case, a console game is being put into a mobile setting, or vice versa. The mobile market is one of the most lucrative aspects of the gaming industry. However, that’s only when the right type of game has been made. There are many titles that don’t hit the mark, which is one of the reasons why Take-Two has been so hesitant to bring its titles to the mobile space.
Take-Two made a promise when they bought the mobile developer Zynga years back that they had a goal and dream to take its IPs like Grand Theft Auto and beyond and bring them to mobile platforms. However, since then, nothing has happened. VGC transcribed an interview that CEO Strauss Zelnick had recently with TD Cowen, and the CEO noted that he knows the promise that was made and the lack of progress with it:
“What you’re really saying is, ‘you haven’t done that, what happened?’ And the answer is, and I said it at the time, I said, ‘listen, that is one opportunity to create revenue synergies, but arguably it’s not the best one because even mobile titles based on traditional core established IP can fail, and the biggest titles in mobile are of course native.’”
He pointed to custom games that Zynga made that were successful because they were made for mobile, or games like Call of Duty Mobile, which were able to translate its gameplay more easily than others. As such, the company needs to be wise about how they handle things because doing a massive failure isn’t in the cards:
“Have we done it yet? We have not done it yet. Is it in our multi-year pipeline? It is in our pipeline, but that doesn’t mean it will succeed, it could fail, in which case it would be irrelevant. No, worse than irrelevant, it would actually cost us money because failures cost us money. But we have to try and we will try,”
At the very least, they’re keeping their options open, which is wise. After all, we’ve seen iconic characters like Mario jump into the mobile space and basically flop, whereas something like Pokemon GO became a global phenomenon because they handled things correctly.
Take-Two will eventually get its mobile game; it’s just a question of what kind of game it will be.
