GTA 5, Game Pass, Overwatch… the business news of the week

business news GTA 5, Game Pass, Overwatch… the business news of the week

Take-Two Posts Losses and Postpones Marvel’s Midnight Suns

Parent company of Rockstar Games, 2K Games or even Private Division, Take-Two Interactive has unveiled its results for the quarter from April to June 2022. A particular period marked by the integration of the mobile game specialist Zynga (FarmVille, Words with Friends, etc.)whose costly acquisition ($12.7 billion) was announced last January.

With Zynga now in its ranks, Take-Two has logically seen its turnover jump to exceed one billion euros. Revenue from mobile games represents 34% of this result (compared to 10% in the same quarter in 2021), behind consoles which are at the origin of 55% of turnover. But the costs of the acquisition have also weighed on the profits of the American firm, which recorded losses for the first time since 2016. It therefore posts a net loss of 102 million euros and expects an annual loss located between 423 million euros and 385 million euros over the fiscal year as a whole.

Period	Turnover	Operating profit	net profit
April to June 2022	1 billion euros	– €37 million	– €102 million
April to June 2021	798 million euros	167 million euros	150 million euros

The biggest release this quarter for Take-Two was cinematic horror game The Quarry, which launched on June 10. No sales figures are disclosed, but the company says it is among the top contributors this quarter alongside NBA 2K22, GTA 5, GTA Online, Red Dead Redemption 2, Red Dead Online, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, WWE 2K22, Top Eleven, Empire & Puzzles and Toon Blast.

The figures for the company’s hits have still been updated. GTA 5 thus reaches 170 million sales worldwide, for a total of 380 million for the franchise. Red Dead Redemption 2 is on its side at 45 million, while Borderlands 3 exceeds 15 million. A word also for NBA 2K22, which does better than its predecessor with 12 million copies sold. Finally, mention to PGA Tour 2K21 and its 3 million sales.

Take-Two’s next notable releases are Rollerdrome (August 16) and NBA 2K23 (September 9). On the other hand, the tactical-RPG Marvel’s Midnight Suns has been postponed once again. It is no longer expected on October 7, but later in the fiscal year (by March 31, 2023) on PS5, Xbox Series and PC, while PS4, Xbox One and Switch versions will arrive later . PGA Tour 2K23, WWE 2K23 and the new Tales from the Borderlands do not yet have a release date, but they are also expected this fiscal year.

Overwatch: the sale of loot boxes will soon be stopped

A page will turn on August 30 for Overwatch. Six years after its release, Blizzard’s game will say goodbye to its paid loot boxes. The famous chests, which only contain cosmetic items, will no longer be available for purchase, but it will still be possible to earn them over the course of the games.

In 2017, the controversy around Star Wars: Battlefront II and its (former) loot box system considered “pay-to-win” had highlighted the abuses of these “surprise bags” containing random virtual objects. Some countries like Belgium and the Netherlands have even legislated about them, likening them to games of chance and outright banning games that contain them (like Diablo Immortal, Fire Emblem Heroes…). Since then, they have been much less present in PC and console games, giving way to another system popular with long-term games: the battle pass, this economic model disguised as a progression system popularized by Fortnite and particularly lucrative.

Overwatch 2, which will be released on October 4 in free-to-play, will precisely follow this trend. The evolution of Blizzard’s hero shooter will offer paid and free season passes, but also an in-game store with cosmetics sold for real money. Playable heroes and maps will remain free.

Charts Europe: F1 22 remains at the top of sales

8.62 million games were sold across Europe in July 2022according to GSD data relayed by GamesIndustry. A particularly weak result, down 38% compared to July 2021, which reflects a calm month in major releases. The best-selling game is none other than F1 22, which was released at the end of June. In the top 20, only one novelty points the tip of its nose: Xenoblade Chronicles 3, which manages to climb to 7th place even though its digital sales are not counted (Nintendo refusing to reveal the sales of its games on the eShop ) and that it appeared at the end of the month (July 29). We note that its launch sales are 27% higher than those of Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition, released in 2020. On the console side, it is ‘the Nintendo Switch that dominated this month of July with “a big margin ahead”” on the PS5 and the Xbox Series, still hampered by stock shortages.

The best sales of July 2022 in Europe

1. F1 22 (EA)
2. Grand Theft Auto 5 (Rockstar)
3. FIFA 22 (EA)
4. LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga (Warner Bros)
5. Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar)
6. Nintendo Switch Sports (Nintendo)*
7. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Nintendo)*
8. Mario Strikers: Battle League Soccer* (Nintendo)
9. Mario Kart 8: Deluxe (Nintendo)*
10. NBA 2K22 (2K Games)
11. The Crew 2 (Ubisoft)
12. Elden Ring (Bandai Namco)
13. Minecraft Switch Edition (Microsoft)
14. Mario The Rabbids Kingdom Battle (Ubisoft)
15. The Quarry (2K Games)
16. Far Cry 6 (Ubisoft)
17. Pokemon Legends: Arceus (Nintendo)*
18. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (EA)
19. Gran Turismo 7 (Sony)
20. Kirby and the Forgotten World (Nintendo)*

.* Download sales not counted

Xbox accuses Sony of paying developers to obstruct Game Pass

Microsoft claimed that Sony paid developers to ensure that their games did not integrate the Game Pass catalog. The accusation, highlighted by the site VGCis carried in a document sent to the Brazilian regulators within the framework of the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by the manufacturer of the Xbox, still being finalized. “Microsoft’s ability to continue to expand Game Pass has been hampered by Sony’s desire to prevent such growth”said the American giant. “Sony pays ‘blocking fees’ to prevent developers from adding content to Game Pass and other subscription services”can we also read.

The comments are part of Microsoft’s response to claims made by Sony last week to the Brazilian commission that Call of Duty moving under the Xbox flag would be “anti-competitive.” In this regard, Microsoft considers “incoherent” Sony’s concern about the possibility that Call of Duty will become exclusive to Xbox consoles, given that the Japanese firm is also developing an exclusivity strategy on PlayStation, not only with its first studios. -party but also by entering into agreements with third-party partners.

“It reveals, once again, the fear of an innovative business model that delivers high-quality content at low cost to gamers, threatening a leadership that has been forged from a device-centric strategy focused on exclusivity over the years”, said Mirosoft. The company has thus suggested that subscription services are a threat to “Sony’s domination of the digital distribution market for console games”and that Sony’s actions reflect a desire to avoid disruption of that dominance.

Briefly in the business news of the week

• Released in early access on Steam on May 17, V Rising has just exceeded 2.5 million sales. As a reminder, he had a meteoric start with a million copies sold in one week.
• Guilty Gear Strive became the first game in the series to reach the million-selling mark.
• Digital marketing company AppLovin has submitted a merger offer with Unity, developer of the eponymous game engine, for $17.5 billion.
• Less than 1% of the 221 million Netflix subscribers play mobile games offered by the streaming platform daily.
• After working for 14 years on the Halo franchise, art director Nicolas Bouvier joined Tencent Games studios.
• Konami (eFootball 2022) has signed a multi-year partnership with the French Football Federation. “Les Bleus will join the eFootball series and the FFF will be associated with a selection of international esports events”announce the communicated.