The thought process behind the GTA 6 marketing strategy has been revealed by the CEO of Rockstar Games‘ parent company. Strauss Zelnick who runs Take-Two Interactive took part in a new interview with Bloomberg to share new insights into how the company is thinking about GTA 6 and its marketing. Let’s take a look at all of the interesting details the CEO revealed on the air.
Why GTA 6 Is Taking So Long To Make
When asked by Wall Street Week’s David Westin why GTA 6 has taken so long to make compared to GTA V, Strauss revealed there are two main reasons. Firstly, Zelnick says “We think you need to create enormous anticipation on the one hand.”
He mentions whilst other publishers put out new releases of franchises often, Take-Two choose not to do so except for sports games. We previously heard from Zelnick that the company can see material anticipation for GTA VI is far higher than GTA V. It also won The Game Award for Most Anticipated Game last year.
The second reason is a more obvious one. The CEO says “it takes a long time to develop these big, robust experiences. Rockstar Games seeks perfection in what they do and perfection is a pretty high bar.” GTA V’s success and the standard it still keeps for the industry 12 years on means the bar for GTA VI, for both Take-Two and consumers, is very high.
Take-Two Talks Trailers
When questioned about the popularity of trailers for console games such as GTA VI and if they give any indication for how well a game will do, Strauss was quick to quip that there is only one trailer for GTA VI.
In a related question, the CEO was asked how does Take-Two market a huge console game like GTA 6? Strauss came from the film industry and said that games like GTA 6 are usually not too different from a big new Hollywood blockbuster with TV ads, outdoor ads, brand marketing etc.
However, the majority of the marketing budget is used directed consumer, performance marketing. Social media is the focus and “we typically don’t spend money on Superbowl ads.” For the past few years, many GTA fans had speculated Rockstar could show a trailer at the big game but it is clear they will not do that.
Shorter Marketing Confirmed
At the end of the interview, Westin asked Zelnick the number one question in the entertainment industry: When does GTA 6 release? We learned this week that GTA 6’s release date is worrying the whole industry. The interviewer remarked that it appears to be a carefully guarded secret and pressed Zelnick on why that is. The CEO gave a small chuckle before giving an answer:
“The anticipation for that title maybe the greatest anticipation I’ve ever seen for an entertainment property. And I’ve been around the block a few times and I’ve been in every entertainment business there is. We want to maintain the anticipation and the excitement. And we do have competitors who will describe their release schedule for years in advance. And we found that the better thing to do is to provide marketing materials relatively close to the release window in order to create that excitement on the one hand and balance the excitement with unmet anticipation. We don’t always get it exactly right, but that’s what we trying to do.” – Strauss Zelnick, Take-Two Interactive CEO
The key detail in there is that they’ve discovered shorter marketing cycles have proven to be better for creating and holding up the anticipation. It is clearly working with GTA 6. Rockstar Games dropped the first trailer in December 2023 and have remained silent since. Despite that, the game is still the most talked about game on social media with it trending regularly. Fans are not giving up on the game just because they have not heard anything in well over a year which is a change for a Rockstar Games title.
Take-Two said a couple of months ago that the game is still on target for a Fall 2025 release. If it is indeed still sticking to that, we should expect to hear or see something in April or May.
As for GTA Online, Strauss says it is bigger than ever, depending on the day, despite being 12 years old now. It has millions of daily players. He goes onto say their subscription service GTA+ is up 10% year over year. This is despite a large blacklast from the core community on social media back when it launched. You can watch the full interview via Bloomberg here.
In other news, a developer who worked on GTA 6 shared how players don’t really explore open world games. Check out some curious insights from an actual GTA VI designer here.
When do you think we’ll see Rockstar Games release the second trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6? Let us know down in the comments section below.
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hello everyone, when will the game be released gta6?
hello everyone, when will the game be released gta6?؟؟
Bought GTA VI and tried it — absolutely wild. Worth every penny. Solid 10/10.
When game release gta 6