STORY: This is part 2 of our 2 part series; The REAL Stadia vs the Bad Journalism. Content creator exposes how easy it is to manipulate facts to serve a hit piece journalist agenda. The following excerpt is from @cliveillenden (Clive Illenden), a YouTube content creator. After our jaw-dropping sit-down with him, it was exposed how many gaming publications are not being fully honest about Stadia. They were recently caught misrepresenting the comments from CEO of TakeTwo, Strauss Zelnick. Clive has contributed the following piece to underline how bad journalism has become in that regard. See his article below…
This article is written in a style that is deliberately not balanced – using the same source as other the articles, – to make a point about how it is easy to write articles to fit a specific narrative, (but oddly enough more balanced than most articles on Stadia)
Head CEO of Take 2 Interactive Dismisses Xbox Games Pass subscription as a business model and supports Stadia and Cloud Gaming!!
In a far reaching interview for investors Straus Zelnick, CEO of Take 2 International, one of the largest game’s publishers in the world, has a few words for people who think an all you eat subscription model is the answer. Subscription services like Netflix have proven a great success, and, as we know the Xbox Games Pass is trying to bring that success to the gaming market. But, the CEO of Take 2 International does not think an all you can eat subscription model is good business for gaming.
“on subscription. You know, it’s challenging” says Zelnick and he goes on to state that just thinking because Netflix share value is really high people think they can get rich quick pursuing a Netflix type subscription BUT he stresses that the current Netflix subscription model for gaming is not the answer for distributors and publishers because,
“front line subscription may be good for the consumer in that they may be getting a break in price, especially if they’re an avid consumer. But it’s no good for the distributor”
ZELNICK SOUR ON GAMEPASS?
He continues, “I’m very skeptical on frontline subscription.”. Clearly this is not great news for Xbox Games Pass then. A Take 2 International title, “The Outerworlds” (from a private label within Take 2 International group) was launched on Xbox Games Pass and on launching titles on subscription services Zelnick goes on to state, “And occasionally we’ve experimented with day and date frontline subscription. And I think what we found is, as you might imagine, if you put out a hit, probably doesn’t make sense” .
The Outerworlds has been a critical and commercial success for Take 2 – so is this him hinting that they regret launching on Xbox Games Pass?. However, Zelnick does believe subscription is great for deep catalogue titles.
When it comes to cloud gaming, Zelnick said that they support Stadia and will continue to do so saying, “So streaming technology is upon us” and he continues “I think anytime you broaden distribution, you essentially broaden your audience, which is why we supported the release of Stadia with three titles initially. And we’ll continue to support high quality streaming services as long as the business model makes sense.”
THE “SOLE” TAKE-TWO’S BUSINESS MODEL
The key thing for Zelnick is that the business model has to make sense if they are to support cloud gaming. As we have seen, Take 2 International have removed titles from GeForce Now, so it is clear this is THE cloud gaming business model that does NOT make sense for Take 2 International, however, on cloud gaming in general he went on to say “So I’m excited about the technology and what it can do”.
So Take 2 International have supported Stadia with a number of titles already on platform, and with more Take 2 games coming to Stadia they clearly see it as a viable business model and additional revenue stream for their business. However, with the removal of Take 2 titles from GeForce Now, Take 2 are clearly not supporting all cloud gaming services the same. As for what that means for Project xCloud if they use the Xbox Games Pass subscription as part of the offering, a subscription model that Zelnick is clearly not in favour of, it remains to be seen whether Take 2 supports that with new AAA titles in the future.
Clive Illenden [Tech blogger and Youtuber]
https://www.youtube.com/c/cliveillenden
See part 1 of The REAL Stadia vs the Bad Journalism —– Journalists exposed over false interpretation of Take-Two CEO comments
