Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has revealed where he disagrees with Empyllion industry analyst Matthew Ball.
Christopher Dring asked Strauss about potential worries that gamers would be aging out of playing video games. He alludes to a survey from the latest Empyllion report (page 87) where 46 out of 100 US adult gamers admitted they played video games less than they used to.
Strauss said this:
If you fell in love with video games at 17 and you’re 40, guess what you still do? Play video games.
That’s why the cohort is continuing to grow as we age. That’s why we have industry tailwinds.
I know Matthew Ball doesn’t really believe that, but our experience here at Take 2 is we are benefiting from industry tailwinds.
Now, we only benefit to the extent we make something great.
We assume Ball would refer to GTA 6 as the exception that proves the rule, but Strauss seems to be confident that this is true of Take-Two’s industry portfolio.
As much research as Ball puts into his work, Strauss definitely has access to more industry information, a lot of which will never go public. So maybe there is reason to not be so pessimistic.