GTA 6
As the entire industry is waiting for GTA 6 to announce its release date, and plan its own launches accordingly, Take-Two and Rockstar do not seem to particularly care.
In a new interview, Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two, offered some new information about the upcoming GTA 6 release and its accompanying Trailer 2 that will frustrate more or less everyone, even if it does make sense given the context of the release. Here’s Zelnick:
“The anticipation for that title may be the greatest 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 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 provide marketing materials relatively close to the release window in order to create that excitement on the one hand and balance that excitement with unmet anticipation.”
The overall takeaway here is that Grand Theft Auto 6 doesn’t really need far-ahead marketing because it probably barely needs marketing at all. Rockstar doesn’t plan trailers around award shows or developer conferences. Its marketing releases are their own events in and of themselves, and Take-Two probably does not care at all about making its competitors squirm by not offering a specific release date (meant to be this fall).
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I don’t really buy the idea that “no marketing until near launch” is doing much to dramatically increase anticipation. At a certain point, I think you cross over a line where it’s simply annoying fans. Again, no, that probably doesn’t matter for sales, but a trailer being released in December of 2023 and nothing since is a bit frustrating. Right around now is when GTA 5 released its second trailer, but there’s no indication that’s imminent for GTA 6 with no teases as of yet.
It just doesn’t really track that releasing a second trailer would somehow let the air out of the hype balloon, as it would no doubt do nothing but further inflate it. It’s not going to pop until release anyway. That said, Take-Two and Rockstar have free reign to do whatever they want, as I do think Zelnick is right about this possibly being the most-anticipated entertainment product release ever. I don’t think that’s an exaggeration. That said, a ton is riding on it as a result, and hopefully it delivers.
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