Fortnite is the game that everyone and their grandma is playing right now, and the game’s success hasn’t gone unnoticed in the industry.
Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of some of the most popular game franchises of all time – Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto – recently weighed-in on the success of the battle royale game.
CEO of Take-Two, Strauss Zelnick, reportedly told analysts that he: “doesn’t expect his studios – 2K Games and Rockstar Games – to follow the footsteps of Fortnite and PUBG.”
Although Rockstar Games doesn’t immediately bring the battle-royale genre to mind, the studio has dabbled with the idea in GTA Online.
Back in summer 2017, GTA Online added a mode called Motor Wars, in which four teams parachute into a location and tackle other teams on a constantly-shrinking map.
Another Adversary mode, Trap Door, was added to the game just last month, but Zelnick is insisting on innovation rather than repetition.
He’s reported to have said: “I think if one changed one’s business to follow other people’s big hits, you’d be constantly playing catch up.
“And to say you wouldn’t be in second place is an understatement. You might remain in last place. So it’s our job to innovate, and more often than not that has driven our success.”
He went on to add: “Maybe the biggest learning [from Fortnite] is just the reinforcement of the fact that big hits by their very nature are unexpected. What drives a big hit is innovation not derivation.
“That’s what we’re proud of around here. When we put out Red Dead Redemption, the conventional wisdom was that western titles do not work in the video game business-and Red Dead Redemption was a big hit and we have extremely high expectations for Red Dead Redemption 2.
“So I think the fact that Fortnite surprised everyone, particularly given where Fortnite came from–after all, what is now in the market is based on a prior release that did not perform all that well. It’s just a reflection of the fact that if you innovate and give consumers what they want, you can get an extraordinary result.
“And while we would love to corner the market in hits, and we certainly see it as our job to do so, we don’t have all of the hits and we shouldn’t expect to.”
With Red Dead 2 being one of the mostly highly anticipated games of the year, we don’t think Take-Two need to worry about Fortnite just yet…