Take Two’s CEO Strauss Zelnick has released some interesting comments that suggest a sequel to Red Dead Redemption is in the works. Zelnick spoke at the recent Cowen and Company analyst conference, and he provided an interesting answer to an audience member’s question regarding the future of the franchise.
“It seems quite obvious that Red Dead is a permanent franchise,” said Zelnick.
Zelnick elaborated that by refusing to flood the market with Red Dead Redemption games, the company has turned it into a “permanent franchise.”
“The risk of just [releasing more games] is that you end up just bulking up your release schedule and that isn’t really what consumers want. Consumers want better, not more. So our selective approach, which we’ve taken since ’07 I think has paid off. Now, we have gotten more by taking that approach; we’ve launched one new successful franchise every year and I would like to keep doing that particularly because I talk about permanent franchises, but not everything is going to be a permanent franchise. Some of our great franchises eventually will lose their luster and some will hopefully be permanent.”
I respect Zelnick’s approach. Although he admits that not every new IP will become a hit, he and his team have a release schedule that refuses to become stale—even if they do plan on releasing a sequel to Red Dead Redemption or Grand Theft Auto in the future.
It’s also worth noting that Take Two has sold 13,000,000 copies of Red Dead Redemption , so I’m sure the franchise’s future is indeed “permanent.”