GTA 6 Boss Says Trolls Are Filling His Twitter Feed And Rockstar Games Is Listening To Fans
According to the leader of Rockstar Games’ parent company, trolls fill his Twitter feed, but acknowledges that fan feedback is essential to listen to. Take Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick also revealed how Rockstar didn’t plan to have microtransactions in GTA Online until near release.
This week, Mr. Zelnick was interviewed by TikTok content creator NPC Conner Mather. Of course, questions about GTA 6 were asked, which you can read about here, but in this article we focus on GTA 6 fans and GTA Online.
GTA Online Without Shark Cards Almost Happened
When asked if he expected GTA Online to be so successful, Mr. Zelnick said neither did he or anyone else at the companies. Zelnick also revealed that microtransactions were not part of GTA Online’s original plan. Below is the full quote from the CEO’s response, which provides some interesting insight into the early days of GTA Online:
“We actually originally had no planned to have virtual currency in the game so it wouldn’t be an economic driver. It is relatively late in the day that we decided to look for a virtual currency because it was a long time ago we look back to 2013. It was not an instant success. You may remember that there was quite a bit of frustration at first. We had some issues coming out of the gate and because it was all new and we were innovating, we did everything in real time. So it was like building an airplane as you take off and then fly it.” – CEO of Take-Two Strauss Zelnick
Expectations of a GTA Fan
Next, Conner wanted to know how Rockstar and Take-Two are managing the huge expectations of GTA fans. Strauss tells TikToker that they are listening to fans.
“We definitely listen to comments from our fans. Absolutely. You have to in our business (…) It’s true that fan feedback is important but at the same time you can’t be completely data-driven you have to be creative.” – CEO of Take-Two Strauss Zelnick
The maker also stated that the biggest games are the ones you least expect and that “everything we do has to be new and different, not derivative”. He continues that “our teams are focused on what’s new, what you didn’t even think about, how you thought you were anticipating this thing, but this is much bigger and much better and more exciting and more beautiful than you could think.”
GTA Fans Or Trolls?
The TikTok star is surprised that Rockstar and even Strauss have many trolls online. Zelnick tells him that “Oh yeah, my Twitter feed, yeah it’s full of it”. Although he says with a smile that it wasn’t as bad as it was recently. “Actually it’s not, there hasn’t been much lately. Yes, it used to be much worse. I know people have moved on. We like the fact that people care.”
The pair talked about how Rockstar and Take-Two work together. Mather wondered what their working relationship was like. The head of Take-Two stated “Rockstar is very independent creatively and and it is the nature of our in our internal work across all our labels there is a lot of interaction, a lot of support obviously financial support, marketing and distribution support. Creatively the labels exercise enormous freedom.”
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