GTA Publisher: “We Have to Rest the Franchise at Some Time”

The GTA series has rapidly become one of the iconic creations in popular culture and set numerous sales records. Rockstar’s magical formula combining a detailed open world environment and expansive story provides an enjoyable experience with superb longevity. Of course, Rockstar invests a great deal of time into each title before releasing it and they’ve never considered iterative updates. The question is, will fans ever become tired of GTA’s open world action? This is something which the publisher, Take-Two has considered.

As reported by GameSpot, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said during the Cowen and Company Technology, Media & Telecom Conference:

“We do expect GTA Online’s results to moderate because October will be three years since we released it,” 

“Not only was it not our intention that GTA Online was permanent, but it’s important that it not be permanent. We have to rest the franchise at some point.”

This clearly shows that the company doesn’t foresee making Grand Theft Auto games forever despite the financial success they bring. Also, support for GTA Online will eventually cease which may annoy some people who’ve invested a lot of time into this multiplayer experience. Honestly, I’d much prefer to see some single player story DLC for GTA V but this doesn’t look likely. I have to applaud Take-Two because they don’t seem entirely driven by profits and care about the reputation of the GTA franchise. It will be a sad day when the games are no longer released, but the back catalogue should age fairly well.