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Take Two CEO committed to single player experiences despite rise of live services

cormack12

Gold Member
Source: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/s...-and-live-services-take-two-ceo/1100-6487280/

During an earnings call this week, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said its Rockstar Games label has always been known for its excellence in storytelling and single-player, and you should expect the company to continue to invest in this with its projects going forward, despite the rise of GTA Online.

"The folks at Rockstar Games intended to create a powerful single-player experience a story driven experience. And Rockstar has always been known for great stories and great single-player experiences and then developed in addition, a massive multiplayer opportunity over the past years," he said.

The executive mentioned that there was an ongoing debate in the gaming industry a few years ago about whether or not single-player games would fall by the wayside as developers and publishers shifted their focus to multiplayer games which can often bring in more money, more regularly, through live services and microtransactions. But Zelnick said no one at Take-Two entertained that idea.

"There was, I think, there was an argument just a couple years ago, not around here, not in this shop, but in some of our competitors' offices, that single-player is dead, that it's all about multiplayer," he said. "We didn't believe that I said specifically and publicly that we didn't believe that, our labels don't believe that."
 

Elios83

Member
Cool, unlike Ubisoft that has ruined all their IPs with that copy and paste live service formula bullshit...
But...where is the new Bioshock? GTAVI trailer?
 

kraspkibble

Permabanned.
i'll believe it when i see it.

likely GTA 6 will be the same...put out a single player story and abandon it within a month so they can spend the next 7 years milking the online portion. i will never forgive them for cancelling singleplayer dlc.
 

MagiusNecros

Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Echoing the above that seeing is believing because right now it's just words and as time has shown reality is often disappointing.
 
Echoing the above that seeing is believing because right now it's just words and as time has shown reality is often disappointing.

But...time has shown consistently that Rockstar has always been about deep, expansive single player experiences. Their last game, rdrII, features a massive single player experience with deep engaging characters. Dozens and dozens of hours worth of single player. And that same game design methodology goes back decades.
 
Source: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/s...-and-live-services-take-two-ceo/1100-6487280/

During an earnings call this week, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said its Rockstar Games label has always been known for its excellence in storytelling and single-player, and you should expect the company to continue to invest in this with its projects going forward, despite the rise of GTA Online.

"The folks at Rockstar Games intended to create a powerful single-player experience a story driven experience. And Rockstar has always been known for great stories and great single-player experiences and then developed in addition, a massive multiplayer opportunity over the past years," he said.

The executive mentioned that there was an ongoing debate in the gaming industry a few years ago about whether or not single-player games would fall by the wayside as developers and publishers shifted their focus to multiplayer games which can often bring in more money, more regularly, through live services and microtransactions. But Zelnick said no one at Take-Two entertained that idea.

"There was, I think, there was an argument just a couple years ago, not around here, not in this shop, but in some of our competitors' offices, that single-player is dead, that it's all about multiplayer," he said. "We didn't believe that I said specifically and publicly that we didn't believe that, our labels don't believe that."
I hate online titles, and i'm 100% for the good single player ones, but If we have to wait 7-10 years between each one of these...no, thanks

They need balance between quality and quantity, games are harder to make every year that passes, and I'm hating the Gta 6 infinite wait, it' s frustrating
 
back to the future great scott GIF


Didn't believe i would hear this. Always a fan of single player games.
 
Sounds like there is no need to torture yourself when Tencent gets its hooks in. Set the tone now so you can make games that devs want to make, and drive the business into ground.
 

yurqqa

Member
If the games would go multiplayer only, I'll find another hobby.
I think there's dozens of us... Dozens !!!

But seriousely, I think singleplayer only gamers are less visible to the companies (and less interesting), but there's a lot of singleplayer only gamers that couldn't be converted to cash cows, but many of them are ready to buy full priced games at launch.
 
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ReBurn

Gold Member
From the makers of 1 GTA game stretched over 3 gens because they are making boatloads of cash from the online.
I really am amazed at the number of people believing him so far. How many single player game updates have Rockstar released vs. the number of online game updates? We haven't seen a new GTA in nearly 8 years and that one didn't receive one single player update. But GTA Online got this:


RDR2 was a great game. Want new bounties? Go to RDR2 online to hunt Gene Beau Finley or Carmela “La Muñeca” Montez! And look at all of these awesome online events! Want character customization items? Just go online!


Rockstar's commitment to single player is to use it as the conduit to their online services. They're not different.
 
I really am amazed at the number of people believing him so far. How many single player game updates have Rockstar released vs. the number of online game updates? We haven't seen a new GTA in nearly 8 years and that one didn't receive one single player update. But GTA Online got this:


RDR2 was a great game. Want new bounties? Go to RDR2 online to hunt Gene Beau Finley or Carmela “La Muñeca” Montez! And look at all of these awesome online events! Want character customization items? Just go online!


Rockstar's commitment to single player is to use it as the conduit to their online services. They're not different.
Who cares about "single player updates". Neither GTA V nor Red Dead Redemption 2 needed any single player updates. The single player in both games are excellent. Memorable missions, all time great characters and dozens of activities to do. Both games can take from over 50 hours to 100 or more hours. I think I put around 120 hours in RDR2.

People say they hate DLC's and they want games to come out fully playable and optimized from the get go and that's what Rockstar always does. As long as they keep delivering amazing single player games from day one there is no need for any additional single player DLC's in my opinion.
 

mortal

Gold Member
Would be weird if they didn't.

It's not like single player games suddenly stopped selling simply because live service multiplayer became increasingly popular.
 

Woggleman

Member
As much as I want great SP DLC for Rockstar games when they did release it it didn't sell. In a just world GTAO would not sell any shark cards but this is not a just world.
 

kyussman

Member
Good to hear....I think post launch dlc is going to be all about online now though from them,like with GTA V.Too much money to be made there than messing about with single player story dlc...shame,but it is what it is....people spend money on this shit(fuck knows why,but still).
 
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ReBurn

Gold Member
Who cares about "single player updates". Neither GTA V nor Red Dead Redemption 2 needed any single player updates. The single player in both games are excellent. Memorable missions, all time great characters and dozens of activities to do. Both games can take from over 50 hours to 100 or more hours. I think I put around 120 hours in RDR2.

People say they hate DLC's and they want games to come out fully playable and optimized from the get go and that's what Rockstar always does. As long as they keep delivering amazing single player games from day one there is no need for any additional single player DLC's in my opinion.
Some people say they hate DLC. Not everyone hates DLC, especially when the DLC is worth the price.

Rockstar released The Ballad of Gay Tony and The Lost and the Damned for GTA IV. They actually released content to flesh out back stories of characters in the game and did it in a way that the DLC wasn't required to complete the main story. That's what many people want from DLC and after GTA IV it was completely reasonable to expect additional single player content for GTA V.

Considering how long it's been since their last GTA and they've only focused on GTA Online they're not committed to single player GTA. RDR2 is almost 2.5 years old and there's no hint of any new single player games from Rockstar on the horizon. But there has been focus on beefing up RDR2 Online with a stand-alone release and a steady stream of updates for it.

It's plain that their focus is not on delivering amazing single player games any more, at least not new ones. Their focus is on their online worlds and micro transactions. A company with the capital and revenue stream of Rockstar has the resources to make single player content. But they're putting them into a new coat of paint on GTA V. So much for their commitment.
 
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Fbh

Member
Good to hear.

But hopefully he is talking about actual single player experiences and not multiplayer ones that you can optionally play alone.
 

ManaByte

Member
Fuck multiplayer.

The whole reason GTA5 is being ported to every new system is because of GTA Online though. It's not due to the SP game, which most people have long since completed.

If RDO takes off the way GTA Online did, then RDR2 will be ported for another decade too.
 

Perrott

Gold Member
i'll believe it when i see it.

likely GTA 6 will be the same...put out a single player story and abandon it within a month so they can spend the next 7 years milking the online portion. i will never forgive them for cancelling singleplayer dlc.
Story modes are not live services, so I don't know why you people are always whining about how Rockstar has "abandoned" it's story modes when in reality there's very little to add to a game as full-fledged as RDR2.

And no, just because they released some S-tier expansion packs in the past it doesn't mean that they OWE you that for every new game.
 
You people are so weird I swear. No company creates better single player games than Rock ⭐️. Not even close. RDR 2 is game for the ages. GTA V’s three characters are still being talked to this day, they are memorable and GTA’s missions are still gold standard in the industry. They are complete games, full package with 100+ hours of content. They don’t need DLC like other 5-10h adventures.

Now, even biggest, hundreds of hours worth of a game, you’ll beat in a month or if you don’t have much time in a few months. And then what? Well, game company wants you to continue playing their game and that is only feasible through multiplayer, logic 💡! How are you gonna make people do that for years if not supporting that multiplayer with constant updates. It’s what responsible company does. You should, instead, be praising them to high heavens for showing such commitment to sp like they do. Thousands of people worked on RDR 2, credits for that game were something I’ve never seen in my life, was literally in awe.

Try that mp sometimes, people, it can be really fun! No one’s gonna hurt you and you won’t be sucked into some wormhole, you can go back to sp again unscathed.
 
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