Take-Two Interactive’s CEO Strauss Zelnick recently discussed a wide array of topics at the MKM Partners Entertainment, Leisure and Internet Conference. He discussed recent critical and commercial disappointments that 2K had published, such as Evolve and Battleborn. Zelnick also detailed how he wants the label to be associated with quality.
Here’s how Zelnick views both Battleborn and Evolve, two titles that weren’t nearly the success that 2K was hoping they would be:
2K is doing great. I think when you put out a lot of titles, not everything is gonna work as well as one would like, and Battleborn is an example of that. Evolve is a little bit different. That was bought out of a THQ bankrupcy, and it was developed by an external studio with oversight from 2K, so it?s a totally different situation. We knew it was a very unusual title, and it was a bet on an unusual title. It didn?t surprise us that consumers had mixed feelings about it. Battleborn was a disappointment. We?ve said so publicly, but I don?t think that?s systemic, because 2K is a company that brings you Civilization, with incredibly high score in the nineties, the company that brings you basketball, which scores in the nineties, XCOM 2 and the like where we?re known for having very high scores.
While Zelnick is right to point out the successful series that the company publishes, there is one yearly game in particular that is rarely a critical darling. That would be the WWE 2K series, and it ...