Take-Two's CEO Strauss Zelnick recently spoke at the Cowen and Company 45th Annual Technology, Media & Telecom Conference about a number of issues, one of which includes microtransactions, with Zelnick revealing that the company has received some complaints regarding the practice.
"You can't give stuff away for free in perpetuity; there's no business model in that," Zelnick explained (courtesy of Gamespot). "But we're not trying to optimise the monetisation of everything we do to the nth degree. My concern is, if you do that, the consumer knows. They might not even know that they know, but they feel it."
"Think about it anecdotally - when you paid a little too much for something, even if it was something really good, it really irks you," he continued. "Paying too much for something bad is even worse. Paying too much for something really good, even if you can afford it, just leaves you with a bad feeling. We don't want our consumers to ever feel that way."
"We are convinced that we are probably from an industry view undermonetising on a per-user basis. There is wood to chop because I think we can do more, and we can do more without interfering with our strategy of being the most creative and our ethical approach, which is delighting consumers."
"We're not going to grab the last nickel," he reassured, however.
Are you bothered by Take-Two's microtransactions, or do you like their approach to it?