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Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of Rockstar Games and 2K Games, reported earnings for its fiscal third quarter ended December 31, 2017. It’s good times for the company, as it posted gains for revenue, while GTA V‘s online mode continued to make a lot of money.

During the holiday season, GTA Online and NBA 2K18 set records for “recurrent consumer spending.” This is Take-Two’s terminology to describe revenue from microtransactions, subscriptions, DLC, and other forms of digital content.

Take-Two CFO Lainie Goldstein said during an earnings call that the company is committed to recurrent consumer spending. The goal for the company, as it has stated for years now, is to have all of its games feature microtransactions in some form. This would also include Red Dead Redemption 2, though no specific details on how microtransactions may be featured in that game have been announced.

Regarding microtransactions in general, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said, “We’re focused on players, not payers.” Giving people great content for free is part of what is making GTA Online so successful, he added. Zelnick went on to say that when you create compelling content, “the monetisation will take care of itself.”

Additionally, GTA V the base game continues to see “robust ongoing sales,” which is remarkable given that the title originally launched back in 2013. GTA V has shipped more than 90 million copies, Take-Two announced today, making it one of the most commercially successful games ever in the United States.

In December 2017, GTA Online set a new player record. More people played GTA Online during the month than ever before in the game’s history, Take-Two said. The game is enduringly successful, Take-Two said, due in part to Rockstar’s commitment to regularly releasing new and engaging content such as the Doomsday Heist and content themed around Halloween and Christmas.

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick at one time referred to GTA Online as “the gift that keeps on giving” as it relates to the money it makes from the game’s microtransactions.

Given the massive success of GTA Online, it stands to reason that Rockstar’s next big game, this October’s Red Dead Redemption 2, may offer something similar. All that we know for sure, however, is that the western will have a “brand-new online multiplayer experience.”

Take-Two’s net revenue for the quarter was $480.8 million, up from $476.5 million during the same period last year. Revenue from recurrent consumer spending jumped by 64 percent year-over-year and made up 32 percent of Take-Two’s total net revenue. Unsurprisingly, GTA Online was called out as one of the main contributors.

Take-Two’s profit for the quarter was $25.1 million, which is down from $29.8 million during the same period last year. Similar to many other companies, Take-Two incurred an tax expense related to Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was enacted on December 22. Take-Two’s expense for this was $11.9 million, so the company would have made a profit instead of a loss under normal circumstances.

During an earnings call, Take-Two shared some further details on the company’s performance during the quarter. Here are some takeaways:

• NBA 2K18 has sold 8 million copies and is expected to become 2K’s best-selling sports game ever.
• Management said the WWE brand remains popular so there is an opportunity in the future to release more games. However, Take-Two did not share a sales number for WWE 2K8.
• Take-Two reaffirmed that a “highly anticipated new title from one of 2K’s biggest franchises” is still on the way. This is likely a reference to Borderlands 3.
• Take-Two has been impressed with the success of the Switch so far. The company will consider bringing more titles to it where it makes sense.

More to come…

It looks like tomorrow’s big Overwatch Year of the Dog update will also include a welcome new feature. Starting tomorrow, February 8, you will have the option to change your character’s skin at the start of a match. This is a feature that fans have been asking for, so it’s nice to see it finally come to the game.

You can see an animated GIF of this below, which Blizzard shared on Twitter today when it announced the new feature. The footage below is from the PC edition, but Blizzard confirmed on Twitter that the feature will also be available on PS4 and Xbox One.

The developer also clarified that you can only change at the start of a match, not when it’s already in progress. Some worried that changing mid-match could interrupt the flow of play if people hung around too long deciding on a skin before jumping back in to play.

This new skin-changing feature is coming to Overwatch tomorrow, February 8, which is also when the Year of the Dog event kicks off. As announced previously, this event adds a new map set in Thailand and made specifically for Capture the Flag. It is the first Overwatch map made specifically for Capture the Flag.

As you’d expect, Year of the Dog skins are coming to Overwatch as well in the update. Check back with GameSpot soon to see a breakdown of the new skins.

One major trend in game currently is the Battle Royale experience. PUBG really put this on the map, while Epic’s Fortnite: Battle Royale is another example. Other games will surely follow, or add Battle Royale modes to their existing formula, and now the publisher Take-Two Interactive has responded to the Battle Royale phenomenon. Speaking on an earnings call today, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick it has been “really interesting” to see the explosion in popularity around the Battle Royale genre. However, Zelnick pointed out that Take-Two, comprising its labels Rockstar Games and 2K Games, generally speaking wants to blaze its own trail instead of being “derivative” by following in the footsteps of something that came before it.

“I would just observe that someone else’s success is really interesting and we are obviously informed by what our competitors do. But our goal is to be as innovative as possible,” Zelnick said. “And titles, even really good titles that are derivative, never seem to do as well as innovations that are unexpected.”

As an example, Zelnick pointed to Red Dead Redemption. He said many might have bet against this game, which was released in 2010, because at the time the thinking was that Westerns couldn’t be successful. That game ended up being a smash hit, critically and commercially, leading to a huge amount of hype around this year’s sequel.

“When we came out with the first Red Dead Redemption, the conventional wisdom was was that Westerns don’t work,” Zelnick said. “It had been an awfully long time since a Western-themed video game had come out. Rockstar took a massive creative risk and the result was extraordinary.”

Zelnick went on to say that he doesn’t anticipate that Rockstar and 2K would be all that enthusiastic about being “derivative” with what they make. However, Zelnick acknowledged that if gamers are calling for a PUBG-like game, Take-Two might bring it to them. “Of course we play in the world and we’re informed by what’s going on. It is our job to bring consumers what they want,” Zelnick said.

For what it’s worth, GTA Online, the multiplayer mode for GTA V, has a PUBG-style mode called Motor Wars. In this mode (watch our extended gameplay video embedded above), players parachute in to a map and fight to do the death. It’s called Motor Wars because the focus is more on vehicular combat that boots-on-the-ground fighting.

For more on today’s Take-Two news, check out the stories linked below.