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The reaction to Red Dead Redemption 2’s announcement surprised even publisher Take-Two.
Speaking to MCV ahead of the company’s financial report, CEO Strauss Zelnick said that the number of views the title’s initial trailer received were higher than the firm’s own high expectations.
The game was teased via a logo of the game by developer Rockstar, and to date has been retweeted 113,866 times. The trailer, released two days later, to date has had over 8m views on Rockstar’s YouTube acount alone. The game is set for an autumn 2017 release and comes with an online mode, presumed to be similar to the lucrative Grand Theft Auto Online.
We always have exceedingly high hopes for our titles,” Zelnick told MCV.
Our strategy is always to deliver the most creative entertainment products in the industry, and more often than not we achieve it. Unquestionably the number of trailer views did exceed our expectations – and our expectations were high.”
For the quarter ending September 30th, Take-Two has reported a 21 per cent growth in net revenue, which rose to $420.2m. The firm says this was largely driven by NBA 2K16, Grand Theft Auto V and its aforementioned lucrattive online component, as well as BioShock: The Collection and XCOM 2. 70m copies of GTAV have been sold into retail to date.
The firm also revealed that Mafia III was 2K’s fastest-selling game, with a Week One shipment of 4.5m units.
Digital content continues to be a big earner for the publisher, with net revenue from this growing by 14 per cent to $230.8m. Recurrent consumer spending accounted for 56 per cent of digital revenue and 31 per cent of total net revenue.
Take-Two’s business continued to outperform during the second quarter, enabling us to deliver strong net revenue and better-than-expected bookings growth,” said Zelnick.
Our outstanding results were highlighted by the series’ record-breaking launch of NBA 2K17, ongoing robust demand for Grand Theft Auto V, and increased recurrent consumer spending, including year-over-year bookings growth from Grand Theft Auto Online.
Our holiday season is off to a great start with a diverse array of successful new releases, including Mafia III, WWE 2K17 and Sid Meier’s Civilization VI, as well as our first virtual reality offering – Carnival Games VR. We intend to support our titles with innovative offerings designed to promote ongoing engagement and drive recurrent consumer spending, including additional free content for Grand Theft Auto Online. Looking ahead, fiscal 2018 is poised to be another strong year for our Company. We expect to grow both bookings and net cash provided by operating activities driven by our release slate led by Rockstar Games’ highly anticipated launch of Red Dead Redemption 2.”
