Strauss Zelnick, the CEO of Take-Two, has signed a new contract. This runs until 2029 and includes a clause stating that he receives bonuses when players spend a lot of money on microtransactions. Take-Two distributes games like GTA Online or Borderlands.
What does the contract say? According to Axios, one of the goals in the contract is tied to RCS (Recurring Consumer Spending). This goal must be achieved and exceeded to receive the bonus.
RCS content includes revenues earned through addons, in-game microtransactions, or virtual currencies. NFTs are also expected to be included in the future.
And the bonuses for the executives are quite substantial. For Zelnick, this likely means several million:
- Strauss Zelnick and President Karl Slatoff reportedly received over $31 million in stock bonuses last year (via sec.gov).
- If they had missed their initial RCS target, they would have reportedly received $3.9 million less, according to Axios.
This means: If you spend money in GTA Online, the head of the publisher directly benefits from it.
By the way, Zelnick was the one who officially announced GTA 6 at the beginning of the year.
Contracts with success bonuses or microtransactions are not uncommon
Is the contract unusual? Not really. Bonuses tied to certain successes can be found in many industries – including gaming. Zelnick reportedly already had bonuses for microtransactions in his previous contract.
However, the new contract is said to place greater emphasis on this. Given the current figures, this is hardly surprising:
- From April to December 2021, Take-Two generated over $1.65 billion through microtransactions.
- During the same period, they only earned $890 million from game sales.
- Key drivers of microtransactions are GTA Online, Borderlands, and NBA 2K.
Does this affect players? Basically, not really. However, it is noticeable that microtransactions are becoming increasingly important.
If bonuses for executives and employees become more tied to these, the interest in creating new content or new ways to encourage players to spend money usually increases.
The former head of GTA 5, Leslie Benzies, is currently working on a new game, outside of Rockstar and Take-Two:
Former GTA head is working on a new MMO – expected to be ‘real Ready Player One’
