Take-Two Interactive has released the latest earnings report for the first quarter of its fiscal year 2022, ending June 30, 2021. The company has reported better than expected results. GAAP net revenue decreased 2% from $831.3 million last year to $813.3 million this year. Recurrent consumer spending increased 15% and accounted for 70% of total GAAP revenue. Digitally- delivered GAAP net revenue increased 1% from $735.6 million last year to $740.8 million. Some of the biggest contributors to GAAP digitally-delivered net revenue include NBA 2k21, NBA 2k20, Grand Theft Auto Online, Grand Theft Auto V, Red Dead Redemption 2, Red Dead Online, Borderlands 3, the WWE series, Dragon City, Two Dots, Sid Meier’s Civilization VI, and Monster Legends. GAAP net income increased 72% to $152.3 million. Take-Two also shared some information regarding what they have planned for the future; discussing that a new game series will be revealed later this month, how some of its upcoming titles have shifted release dates, and how they are preparing to release more games in the next three years than they ever have before.
It has been reported that Take-Two will release 93 games over the next five years. The earnings report today has revealed the first four games that will be launching: WWE 2K22, NBA 2K22, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, and fourth that will be revealed later this month. The new game has been confirmed to be released between now and March 31, 2022. Speaking to IGN, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick talked about how the company is increasing how many big games they will release. He said this has been something the company has been building towards for some time. “It’s evolutionary rather than revolutionary,” Zelnick said. “We’ve been building up the company ever since we came here 14 years ago. It just takes a long time, because it takes a long time to come up with ideas, it takes many years to bring ideas to fruition, it takes time to build teams, and obviously we’re trying to create the best quality entertainment of any sort on earth. That’s a tall order.”
The CEO also talked to IGN about how the company plans to avoid culture similar to Activision Blizzard following the allegations that the state of California presented in a lawsuit. Zelnick said “We’ve had that concern on a daily basis for as long as I’ve been at the company, and even now we’re proud of our environment. It’s an environment of inclusion, respect, and common decency. And yet, we know we can do more. We have and have had for a very long time a highly diverse board of directors. We have a diverse workforce. And the communication internally is phenomenal. Even with 6800 people, I hear from people directly and I’m completely reachable through Slack, through text, through email and phone calls and, personal visits. We don’t think we’re immune to issues. We do think we’re very focused on the health and wellbeing of all our employees worldwide, and we think people know that here. But there’s more to be done at any given time, and our focus has been heightened and I suspect will continue to be heightened.”
Answering a similar question from investors during the call, Zelnick responded with “We don’t think that fostering an appropriate environment is a single set of actions or reflects one day in a news cycle,” he said. “We think it’s a constant process of introspection and improvement. There are always ways that we in the industry can do better. We’ll listen to our colleagues and we’ll work in this area over time. But I want to be very specific because you asked the question about what we do around here and what we’ve always done. The first is, and I’ll say it in as black-and-white a way as I can: We will not tolerate harassment or discrimination or bad behavior of any kind. We never have. We set those expectations when people come on board here through our code of conduct and our anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policies, all of which our colleagues are required to review and sign when they are hired. All of our colleagues take anti-harassment training at hire and bi-annually after that. And we make it clear through our training and our policy that if anyone does experience any inappropriate contact, there are multiple avenues to report that, and they’ll never be retaliated against for doing so. Those options include the management chain, anyone in HR, an anonymous complaint by phone or online through our third-party hotline and website reporting tools. Take-Two has a director of diversity and inclusion, and that remit includes developing, executing, and leading the global DE&I strategy, and that supports our business objectives. We also have multiple employee resource groups inside the company and we have more growing all the time.”