Don't expect a Grand Theft Auto MMO to appear in the United States anytime soon. The publisher of the GTA series believes that it would never make any money. Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick told the crowd at Cowen Technology, Media, and Telecom Conference in New York that the company has no plans to invest in MMOs for the US audience.
According to a report from Gamespot, Zelnick notes that only two MMOs have ever succeeded in the states. He also points to Blizzard Entertainment's recent overhaul of Titan to back up his hypothesis.
"A couple of our competitors have found out that through very, very expensive lessons--one of our competitors just recently announced they're restarting an MMO project in the US," says Zelnick.
"We look at it and say 'How many MMOs have ever been successful in the U.S,?' Two - World of Warcraft and EverQuest - that's kind of a bad slugging percentage."
While Zelnick says MMOs fail in the U.S., he believes they can thrive overseas. During his speech he chats about Take-Two's experience working with Chinese developer Tencent. Take-Two worked with the developer to bring NBA 2K Online to Asia.
"We've stayed away from that market and instead we went to Asia where at any given time ten or twenty are successful in China generating lots of revenue," continues Zelnick.
"[We] figured we don't really know China very well, so we partnered with the best company in China: Tencent. They taught us the business, we taught them something about sports game development and we've launched NBA 2K Online with virtually no economic risk and a straight shot to the upside."
Take-Two has been busy working on MMOs specifically for Asia. A MMO based on the RTS series Civilization is currently in production. The title is being exclusively made for Asia with no plans to be released in the US.
Despite not having a US MMO set to release anytime soon, Take-Two still looks to be busy this year. The publisher has the next game in the Grand Theft Auto series expected to come out this Fall. A squad-based shooter in the XCOM universe is also expected to come out this summer.