Fans wishing that Take-Two would release a new game in the Grand Theft Auto series every year or so like other franchises will be disappointed to know that the publisher has no interest in doing so. Take-Two COO Karl Slatoff defended this business model during the Wedbush Transformational Technologies Conference earlier this week.
"We could easily have churned out a new version year after year without really progressing as a franchise, but if we did that, eventually the fans would lose interest...," Slatoff stated.
Grand Theft Auto 5 is slated to come out September 17, roughly five years after Grand Theft Auto 4 was released in 2008, though there have been a few episodic releases of DLC between the games. Slatoff believes these long gaps between games are good for the series creatively and commercially.
"Grand Theft Auto, every single time it comes out, is a brand new experience. You can't possibly do that in two years. And if we did that, our product would fatigue and the franchise would degrade from a value perspective."
Others who are involved with the series have also pledged that the series will not have biannual releases, such as Rockstar North's Leslie Benzies.
Considering all the anticipation and hype that goes into the months before a Grand Theft Auto game is released, this strategy works out for the companies involved. Grand Theft Auto is one of the most revered franchises in modern gaming, so to see the company pump out sequel after spinoff would ultimately cause diminishing returns. Remember when Final Fantasy games did not have sequels? When was the last time a Madden game was considered a truly great game? Grand Theft Auto 5 has never had this problem, so clearly the ideas of Slatoff and others is working.
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