Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick says the company is trying to give Rockstar everything it needs to make GTA 6 as good as it possibly can be.
"I think here our goal is to deliver to consumers something that's never been experienced before," Zelnick says, speaking to Bloomberg. He explains, "Being on the sidelines but pretty close to the front of the sidelines is very, very exciting. And terrifying. Because the expectations are so high." This is a fear he has previously shared, when he said that the impending release of GTA 6 has him a "billion" times more "scared" than any other game release.
Zelnick continues: "Development costs have gone up and up. And we really do aim to deliver the highest quality entertainment on Earth. And that is costly." With the increased cost of game development, it's safe to assume that the budget is huge for GTA 6, even without considering marketing spend, which in turn leaves a bigger risk in the unlikely chance that it fails to sell well. However, Zelnick adds, "That's a high-stakes game for big boys only, and I'm cool with it."
"We have the most amazing creative teams. We not only encourage them to pursue their passions, we insist that they do it. We try to give them unlimited financial, creative human resources and then they aim to deliver perfection," he adds. And, while it'd be a shock if GTA 6 doesn't sell a wild amount of copies, Zelnick says that Take-Two will "never claim success before it occurs."
The unfortunate truth is that unless you are GTA 6 – which, after a 13-year wait has become a highly sought-after game for fans of the series – the unlimited time, money, and resources plan isn't exactly feasible for most. GTA 6 will inevitably sell millions out the gate, and assuming that it gets its own version of GTA Online, Rockstar is bound to make disgusting amounts of cash from microtransactions, so it does make sense for Take-Two to give the devs what they need.
