Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of Rockstar Games and 2K Games, released the company's numbers for the current FY 2024 Q3 earnings. Per the company's report, Take-Two saw a 3% dip in the total net bookings as the numbers went from $1.38 billion last fiscal year's Q3 to $1.34 billion. Take-Two highlights the positives of sales of their popular titles like GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2.
In the Q3 of FY 2024, the sales of GTA 5 reached the 195 million units mark worldwide, whereas Red Dead Redemption 2's sales hit 61 million units. Despite the positive performance from GTA and the Red Dead Redemption franchise, the company faced a dip in their net bookings and is looking forward to starting cost reduction by cutting down their marketing expenditure.
Also Read: Hacker Behind GTA 6 Leaks Sentenced To Life In Hospital Prison
Rockstar Games Parent Company Take-Two Interactive To Work on Cost Cutting Without Any Layoffs
With the company looking forward to reducing its expenditures, layoffs in the gaming industry have become very common. The world saw layoffs from Twitch, Riot Games, Amazon Games, Microsoft Gaming and more. When Take-Two Interactive saw a dip in their net bookings, they also decided to initiate some cost cuttings in their company. While talking about the cost reduction program at Take-Two, here is what Strauss Zelnick, Chairman and CEO of Take-Two, said:
Our strategy is anchored in creativity, innovation, and efficiency. We are currently working on a significant cost reduction program across our entire business to maximize our margins, while still investing for growth. These measures are incremental to, and more robust than, our prior cost reduction program, and we aim to achieve greater operating leverage as we roll out our outstanding release schedule.
Despite accounting for 75% of the total net bookings, Take-Two saw a 7% drop in recurrent consumer spending. This recurrent consumer spending spans NBA 2K24, GTA Online, GTA 5, Toon Blast, Empires & Puzzles, Red Dead Redemption 2, GTA Trilogy and more. Take-Two believes the reason behind the offsets lies behind the mobile advertising and sales of NBA 2k24. In Zelnick's recent conversation with IGN, he talks about how they plan to execute cost-cutting without any layoffs. He says:
I would just note that our biggest line item of expense is actually marketing. We do think we can optimize that. We also have third-party expenses, software, other vendors, supply services. And we always find opportunity there. The hardest thing to do is to lay off colleagues, and we have no current plans.
Take-Two sounds optimistic for the future, mostly because of their highly anticipated game, GTA 6, whose trailer was released in December 2023. The proof of the game's anticipation lies in the records broken by the first trailer of the game, crossing 93 million views in the first 24 hours. Even though the game is far from launch, Take-Two will use GTA 6's popularity to improve their numbers.