However, GTA VI will be an outlier in a games industry that is still struggling to recover from a protracted slump, leading to lay-offs at Sony and Microsoft's gaming units, as well as top publishers including Take-Two, Electronic Arts and Ubisoft. More than 33,000 people have lost their jobs since 2022, according to tracking site Games Industry Layoffs, including almost 15,000 in 2024 alone.
Zelnick conceded he was "a bit surprised by the reduction in demand" from players that started in 2022, as post-pandemic consumers turned off their screens and returned to live, in-person events. "All of us in the industry had to do some restructuring," he said. "We too got a little bit ahead of ourselves in terms of growth expectations."
Now, the Take-Two chief believes growth is starting to accelerate again. "It's way too early to believe that this [console] generation is maturing or has reached its apex," Zelnick said. "You're seeing more consumer demand broadly. And the [games] industry, frankly led by us, has an amazing release schedule coming in 2025 and beyond . . . A hit coming from one company tends to benefit the entire industry."
Not everyone is so optimistic. Ampere Analysis, a consultancy, forecasts that consumer spending on games content and services will increase just 2.2 per cent in 2025 to $195bn. That year-on-year growth rate is slightly higher than Ampere's estimate of 1.4 per cent in 2024 and better than the 4.8 per cent drop between 2021's pandemic peak and 2022's lockdown easing.
Nonetheless, it pales in comparison with the industry's huge expansion in the previous decade: games content spending doubled from $95bn in 2015 to $191bn in 2021, according to Ampere.
www.ft.com
