As GTA 5 passes 205 million units sold, publisher Take-Two says hit titles “decay” and if they’re not making new IP, they’re “burning the furniture to heat the house”

Publisher Take-Two is best known for GTA, Red Dead Redemption, and its various sports games, but CEO Strauss Zelnick has emphasized in an earnings call last night that if the company wasn’t willing to make new IP, “well then none of us would be sitting here today.”

For a company so invested in GTA 5 and its yearly NBA 2K, it can be easy to forget that Take-Two and its main publishing arm, 2K, have fingers in many pies and don’t just rely on sequels. 

Zelnick got a little philosophical during the company’s Q2 earnings call yesterday, November 7, 2024. “There is this thing called decay and entropy, and it’s a feature of physics and human life and everything that exists on earth,” he explains. “Ultimately, everything does decay, including hit titles. So if we’re not trying new things and making new intellectual property, to say that we’re resting on our laurels really understates it – we’re really running the risk of burning the furniture to heat the house.”

While GTA Online and NBA 2K are colossal sources of income, and Zelneck acknowledges “most of our franchise sequels tend to do better than the prior release,” he adds that “we have teams delivering new hits all the time in mobile and in console.” You never know what the next GTA will be.

The list of games worked on by Take-Two is broad. Titles you’ve definitely heard of like BioShock, Civilization, and XCOM, are all huge, but it’s also part of many smaller projects. One of my own personal favourite forgotten gems is The Darkness. This was a strange experience where you played as a mafia member with snake-like, heart-eating tentacles who had to traverse city blocks in the modern day as well as a World War One-inspired Hell. It was out there.

More recently, it’s also played a part in publishing or distributing the rougelite hit Hades, the charming Rollerdrome, and the overlooked Marvel’s Midnight Suns. 

While the company has an impressive roster, this strategy isn’t without its shortcomings. “It does mean the risk profile is higher,” Zelneck says. “It does mean that when we get it wrong, and we will get it wrong now and then, we take a hit, and that affects our operating margins.” Earlier this year, Take-Two laid off nearly 600 people.

Zelneck does also say that “The good news is, frankly, our hit ratios are really high for this industry,” so hopefully it keeps investing in interesting titles like Spec Ops: The Line and The Quarry.

While Take-Two isn’t only interested in sequels, we all want to know everything about GTA 6, so check out what we’ve learned so far.