Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick wants to monetise 100% of its audience | Pocket Gamer.biz
Following the company’s success in the recent financial quarter – with mobile dominating revenue – Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick analysed the state of the company’s mobile revenue – and thinks there’s room for improvement.
Mobile accounted for a massive $680 million of Take-Two’s revenue in Q1 of the 2023-2024 financial year, or 53% of this total.
“We are fielding a game for 100% of the audience and monetising 10% or so, perhaps a bit more, often a bit less. And it’s our view that we ought to be monetising 100% of the audience,” said Zelnick, discussing the company’s recent success with GameSpot.
Aiming for success
While mobile’s massive success is enviable, it seems that Take-Two is hoping to multiply that success significantly. However, Zelnick noted that getting 100% of the audience to spend money in-game through microtransactions is a tricky, perhaps impossible prospect. As such, the company is considering an increased focus on advertising as a means of further monetisation.
“If someone’s going to spend, that’s great. And if they’re not going to spend, then we ought to be able to monetize through advertising,” said Zelnick. “The question is how do you do that and create a high-quality experience? And I think the answer is we can do that. We can distinguish among those audiences. We’re not there yet, but I think we’re moving in that direction.”
It’s worth noting that Zelnick’s pay is tied to the company’s performance in terms of microtransactions, as he and Take-Two president Karl Slatoff earned more than $31 million in stock and incentives due to the company’s strong performance in this metric. As such, while a push towards monetising 100% of the audience through advertising is good business, Zelnick is unlikely to ake his foot off the microtransactions gas any time soon..
We listed Take-Two Interactive as one of the top 50 mobile game makers of 2022. We’ll be unveiling or list for 2023 at our event at Gamescom on August 22.
