Recently, the annual Credit Suisse conference was held in Arizona, and here several key executives within the game industry shared their personal thoughts on the on-going loot box scandal. Amongst them we find Take-Two president Karl Slatoff, who has a pretty old school approach to these practices. During the expo, he was asked to comment on the recent controversies and he said it's the job of game designers and publishers to first and foremost drive engagement through content.
According to Slatoff, you can't force a consumer to buy something, but you can create the best content possible to drive consumer engagement, and engagement then creates value and further venues to pursue. "That's how it's been and how it always will be," he added.
He also addressed "overdelivering", which means getting the initial product and release right, before focusing on "recurring consumer spending". He mentioned Grand Theft Auto V as an example, where the campaign, the game size and the structure was delivered without any interference from microtransactions and so did not focus on getting the player to spend more. Then, the company gradually moved focus to GTA Online.
What do you think of Slatoff's remarks and do you feel this practice was employed in the recently released NBA 2K18?