It might seem to be the simplest task in the world to market Grand Theft Auto VI to a crowd of gamers who are already expecting it to rock their world on November 19. I mean, why does Take-Two Interactive and its Rockstar label have to market GTA VI at all?
Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two Interactive, addressed this question in a fireside chat with GamesBeat’s Alex Lee at our GamesBeat Insider event, sponsored by Overwolf, in New York today. It was a great peek at Take-Two’s strategy as we approach what is likely the biggest entertainment launch in history — in front of an audience of brands, CMOs, senior marketers, brand executives, and business decision makers from across gaming and advertising.
“It’s not a dumb question. It’s actually a smart question. Who who has not heard of the brand?” Zelnick said in the exclusive conversation.
Zelnick said that the lesson comes from The Barbie Movie. Of course, there are differences in how you market a blockbuster game or a blockbuster movie. We’ll get to that in a bit. (GB Max members will be able to see the whole stream on Monday; see the bottom of story for how).
If you haven’t heard much about the parent of Rockstar Games, Take-Two owns a number of labels like Rockstar Games and it has helped launch some of the most famous game franchises in history. Grand Theft Auto V, launched in 2013, has sold more than 230 million copies. Take-Two also has huge franchises in Red Dead Redemption, BioShock, Borderlands and NBA 2K. GTA VI preorders suggest that the company stands to make billions of dollars from the launch the fall, followed by more money with expected launches of the PC version and an as-yet-unannounced new version of GTA Online.
Zelnick said that experiencing interactive entertainment is about how you play the game. You can play Borderlands 4, but no player will have the exact same experience that you do, and that’s very different from linear entertainment like movies.
Being authentic
Zelnick noted that marketing games is similar to TV and movie marketing to a point. Everyone wants great reviews and fan excitement. But with games there are creators who help games rise above the thousands of other games in the minds of fans who not only love the games but also trust the creators. Some of them are paid, but fans still trust their word.
“You’re amplifying word of mouth because what you can’t do is pay anyone to say something that’s terrible is good,” Zelnick said. “Even if they’re the most craven creator on earth, the minute they did that, they lose their own audience, right? So, no one’s going to do that.”
You can ask a creator to exclusively play a game for a couple of days and thereby reward them for the time they put into that promotion. But he added, “My point is you can’t game the system. We cannot convince people something that something that’s bad is good. What we can do is say to people, ‘Look, it’s out there. You’re being exposed to it. It’s important. You ought to try it.'”
The only way to back that up is to make something good.
“That’s 100% of our focus, right? It’s happy to talk about marketing, but our company’s mission is to make the best entertainment on earth. We have a mission statement and a strategy and a culture. It’s all stated. We have to state it here. We say it every time we talk internally, and it starts with trying to make the biggest and best hits,” Zelnick said.
Lee asked how that brings us back around to taking advantage of this situation and create the marketing help create a massive media moment?
Investors, Zelnick said, will ask the same thing in a less polite way. Some have asked, “Well, obviously everyone’s heard of Grand Theft Auto VI. So why are you wasting money on marketing? Shouldn’t you just put it out there? That is the question.”
Zelnick said a similar situation happened with Mattel’s intellectual property, The Barbie Movie.
“All of us saw the Barbie movie, and they marketed the living daylights out of that picture. Even though the IP is very well known. Secondly, it was out there for a while. We all got the joke of what it was going to be. They did a phenomenal marketing campaign. It was really everywhere, and, by the way, it worked. You could have taken the same position with them,” Zelnick said.
“But I think in launching broad-based entertainment properties, you don’t have a choice. You always have to go out and create enthusiasm. So, awareness is one thing; enthusiasm is another thing. And we have to show people what they’re going to get because, in linear entertainment, you sit there; it’s presented to you. You don’t have to interact with it. You don’t have to install it. You don’t have to have any expertise. You may like it, you may not like it, but it is a lean-back experience,” Zelnick said.
An expensive tutorial?
Referring back to the 27-minute Grand Theft Auto VI gameplay reveal on Netflix, Zelnick emphasized what is unique about advertising the game that takes such a high commitment from people, as opposed to just watching a movie.
Zelnick added, “With interactive entertainment, you have to engage with the title in order to enjoy the title. And so, part of our marketing is to show people, ‘Hey, what’s up?’ And in certain cases, actually, we have to give something that’s actually called a tutorial to say to people, ‘This is how you play it before people are going to be willing to spend their money to try.'”
Lots of people saw the extended trailer.
“What Rockstar did was incredible, but there was an element of tutorial baked in there, right? It just was a different kind of proposition. If you look at Rockstar’s marketing previously for Grand Theft Auto titles, there are actual tutorials. This was just a different way of giving the same information, which I thought was really impressive. Rockstar figured out how to do that to entertain us for 27 minutes while also explaining to us how you’re going to play the game,” Zelnick said. “And here’s the gameplay.”
Lee also asked how games rise above the clutter, a question that is relevant for all of the game makers in the industry.
“When I was in the movie business, which was a long time ago, we used to ask that very same question. And one of the things that we found, unfortunately, it doesn’t help you, but it is true. If the thing is no good, you can market the living shit out of it, and people will still not notice the marketing,” Zelnick said. “If the marketing’s terrible, you can turn people off, and if the marketing’s great, you can create more excitement. And the whole goal that we always have, whether it’s this upcoming launch or any other title, is to take awareness and turn it into excitement, and take the lack of awareness and turn it into awareness.”
That turns into the intention to consume. That’s what marketing can do, Zelnick said. And Twitch streamers restreamed the Netflix show and got perhaps even more people to react to the show.
As far as the Netflix show goes, Zelnick said, “I think this was good for everyone involved.”
I was happy with the event and how Alex handled the conversation. It was GamesBeat’s first New York event, designed around a simple premise: that gaming has become too important for brands to treat as a niche marketing channel.
Watch GamesBeat’s complete conversation with Strauss Zelnick, Chairman and CEO of Take-Two Interactive, on the GTA VI marketing and what gaming’s biggest entertainment moment means for brands.
Starting September 21, you can watch the stream of the full talk exclusively with GB MAX Insider or Premium.
[Get GB MAX to Stream the Full Conversation →]