Take Two’s $500 million quarter at the end of last year can fairly be called “the San Andreas” quarter. With PC and Xbox versions just launched, times are good. But what would Take Two look like without its blockbuster and its GTA franchise?
When this question is posed to Paul Eibeler, Take Two’s chief executive and president, his face shows momentary concern at such irredeemable stupidity. Clearly a world without Grand Theft Auto isn’t one that Eibeler spends much time contemplating.
Gathering himself, he attempts to ameliorate such a regrettable state of ignorance. “It’s the biggest game in videogame history,” he says, without a hint of bombast. “The whole business would look different without it.”
He adds, “That product is so groundbreaking it’s unfair to compare it with anything else.” But did Take Two get lucky with GTA, or was the whole thing part of a fiendish plan to break a bunch of records and make a load of money? “It was neither of those things,” Eibeler says. “We had some creative genius in the Rockstar guys. They wanted to do a game that was fully immersive with a nonlinear story and was bigger and grander than anything that had come before. And they delivered on that.”
But great games have something extra, an indefinable that’s tied up with where we are, as a culture. “That’s right,” Eibeler agrees. “It captured the hearts and minds of gamers everywhere. It’s a mass product and falls within the boundaries of mainstream entertainment.”
He adds, “ [Rockstar is] very tuned into the culture today. They’re passionate about the business and they combine that with great creativity and insight into the games that people want to play.”
Along with the success has come the notoriety, some of it welcome, some not so. Eibeler is well used to facing “the violence question.” But does it feel like the company is becoming a focal point for an industrywide responsibility?
“There are times when we do feel that way,” he agrees. “But we get those calls [from the media] and we educate them about the ratings system and the older demographics of gaming, and they listen and they take that back and they realize this is just like any other entertainment business, like the movies.”
Having previously run Acclaim in the U.S. during the crazy late ‘90s, Eibeler knows consumer tastes change rapidly. So incoming money is being used to tie up development talent, new IP, and licenses for the future.
Subsidiary label 2K Games has a roster that includes 24: The Game, The Elder Scrolls IV, Call of Cthulu, Sid Meier’s Pirates, Civilization IV, and Prey. In recent months the firm has been very active in the sports market, picking up Visual Concepts from Sega and tying the MLB to an exclusive third-party deal.
He says that Electronic Arts’ deal with the NFL changed the landscape forever. “We were shocked that after 25 years of nonexclusivity, the NFL chose our competitor to be their exclusive partner. We took a step back and spoke to the other leagues and talked about the money we are investing in these products. We said we can’t do this unless it’s a much more formal and longer-term relationship. All the leagues understood.”
From that came the baseball deal. “We presented a full marketing program to the MLB and the MLBPA and they were very impressed and awarded us a long-term exclusive arrangement with the exception of first parties. It’s not our place to tell the hardware companies what they can and can’t publish.”
Regardless of GTA, Eibeler points toward the company’s broad portfolio of products housed under more defined marketing umbrella labels as the company’s future. But, he says, GTA has made a real impact to the firm. “As a company we did some great games before Grand Theft Auto. But it set the bar for us as a company and for the industry. Everything coming out of Rockstar after that was looked at differently. Also, Rockstar now has the resources to make bigger and better games.”