What is better than $800 million in one day? $1 billion in three days. That is the amount of money that [amazon_link id=”B0050SXKU4″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Grand Theft Auto V[/amazon_link] has made for Rockstar since its release.
Take Two released a statement saying, “We believe this marks the fastest that any entertainment property, including video games and feature films, has reached this significant milestone.”
I hope Fox News doesn’t pick this story up. They might start jumping out of their windows at all the millions of potential murderers that are on the street now because of this game.
In retrospect, let’s do hope they pick up the story so they will jump out of their windows.
In some of the greatest stories written, a creator must kill his creation before it gets out of control. Thus is the story of the Bioshock movie. At a recent BAFTA event, Bioshock creator Ken Levine was blatantly honest about why audiences never got to take a cinematic trip into Rapture.
He decided to kill his own creation.
“Take Two is one of those companies that gives a lot of trust to their creative people and so they said to me, ‘if you want to kill it Ken, kill it’. And I killed it.”
This came about after Universal trimmed the budget from $200 million to $80 million and director Gore Verbinski left the project over the budget reduction. And why did the studio suddenly get cold feet and slash the budget by so much? Would you believe [amazon_link id=”B001FB55H6″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Watchmen[/amazon_link]?
“There was a deal in place and it was actually in production at Universal, and Gore Verbinski was directing it. And what happened was – this is my theory – it’s a very big movie and Gore was very excited about it and he wanted to make a very dark, what he would call a ‘hard-rated’ horror film – an R rated film with a lot of blood. Then The Watchmen came out – and I really liked The Watchmen – but it didn’t do well for whatever reason and the studio got cold feet about making an R rated $200 million film.”
I don’t blame Levine for wanting to keep the movie from beginning if he didn’t feel wholly comfortable with the direction it was heading. As far as Universal getting cold feet, I don’t blame the failure of Watchmen, I blame the comic fans who clamored for a big screen version of the greatest graphic novel ever written and didn’t go and give it the support it needed.
WWE officially has a new home for video games. Take Two and the sports entertainment company finalized a new five year deal that will see 2K Sports take over the license beginning with the re-branded WWE 2K14.
The Japanese developer Yuke’s will still be handling duties on the game as they did with THQ which, to me, was the most important part of this deal. They have learned over the years and crafted an engine that works with the WWE style and to give this over to a new developer could have given us a great game, but more likely would have produced something….well bad. Yuke’s is coming off what I believe to be their best WWE game yet, WWE 13.
It seems like there are a lot of people that appreciate quality shooters with a quirky style and loot galore. 2K Games has announced that [amazon_link id=”B0050SX9VO” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Borderlands 2[/amazon_link] is close to shipping 6 million copies of the game since its release last September.
Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick had this to say about the success of Borderlands 2:
“Building on its extraordinary launch in September, Borderlands 2 continues to expand its audience and remains on pace to become the highest-selling title in 2K’s history. It has also been the largest contributor to our digitally delivered revenue this year, driven both by strong sales of full game downloads, and high attach rates for the title’s add-on content, especially the Borderlands 2 Season Pass.”
With almost 6 million copies of the game out in the wild (actual sale numbers were not given), I would love to know just how much money has been looted total in all the games. I can’t think of a number that high.
In the wake of THQ’s auction which saw their properties and studios sold off, one glaring party left out was the WWE name. Some have said that EA was in the market to pick up the sports entertainment brand but they have denied those rumors because we know how EA doesn’t like to buy franchises and ruin them.
Now it seems that Take Two, the parent company of 2K, has stepped up to the plate and purchased the rights to Vince McMahon’s multi-million dollar name in games. It is sad to see the THQ era of wrestling games come to an end, especially with WWE 13 being such a great game last year. At least the team at Yuke’s and THQ went out with the best WWE game ever. Now we get to look forward to the future.
