Strauss Zelnick Explains Why GTA 6 Still Needs a Huge Marketing Campaign
Strauss Zelnick says Rockstar must turn GTA 6’s enormous awareness into excitement, while revealing how its 27-minute Extended Look secretly doubled as a gameplay tutorial.
Speaking during a new GamesBeat interview in New York, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick discussed the challenge of marketing what is already one of the most widely anticipated entertainment releases in the world.
According to Zelnick, investors have even questioned why Take-Two needs to spend significant amounts marketing GTA 6 when virtually everyone already knows about it.
"Obviously everyone's heard of Grand Theft Auto VI. So why are you wasting money on marketing?"
But Zelnick explained that simply knowing GTA 6 exists isn't enough. Rockstar's job over the coming weeks is to turn that enormous awareness into excitement ahead of the game's November 19 launch.
"In launching broad-based entertainment properties, you don't have a choice. You always have to go out and create enthusiasm. So, awareness is one thing; enthusiasm is another thing."
Zelnick compared the situation to the Barbie movie. Despite Barbie already being one of the most recognisable brands in the world, he noted that the film was still marketed extremely aggressively.
"They marketed the living daylights out of Barbie."
He said Take-Two's challenge with GTA 6 is similarly to:
"Take awareness and turn it into excitement."
Creators help amplify word of mouth
Zelnick also discussed the increasingly important role creators and streamers play in marketing video games, noting that audiences often trust the creators they follow even when some promotional activity is paid.
He described their role as:
"You're amplifying word of mouth."
Zelnick argued that the relationship only works while creators retain the trust of their audience. Even when working with publishers, he said:
"You can't ... pay anyone to say something that's terrible is good."
Doing so, he argued, would mean:
"They lose their own audience."
GamesBeat notes that publishers can instead pay creators for their time – for example, asking someone to exclusively play a particular game for a couple of days – while the creator's actual opinion remains important to maintaining their credibility.
The comments are particularly interesting in the context of GTA 6's current marketing campaign. Rockstar has already worked closely with creators during its Extended Look campaign, inviting a number of them to preview the game and allowing creators to livestream reactions and commentary during its initial Netflix exclusivity window.
GTA 6's Extended Look was secretly a tutorial
Zelnick also provided some interesting insight into Rockstar's recent 27-minute GTA 6 Extended Look, which premiered exclusively on Netflix for six hours before being released elsewhere.
Rather than viewing the presentation simply as an extended gameplay showcase, Zelnick said Rockstar managed to incorporate an introduction to how GTA 6 actually plays without making the video feel like a traditional tutorial.
"What Rockstar did was incredible, but there was an element of tutorial baked in there."
He praised Rockstar for finding a way to explain the game's mechanics while keeping viewers entertained throughout the presentation.
"Rockstar figured out how to do that to entertain us for 27 minutes while also explaining to us how you're going to play the game."
Summing up the approach, Zelnick added:
"And here's the gameplay."
Netflix experiment was "good for everyone"
The Extended Look also represented an unusual marketing experiment for Rockstar, with Netflix receiving a six-hour exclusive window before the presentation appeared on Rockstar's own channels.
Asked about the partnership, Zelnick described the experiment positively.
"I think this was good for everyone involved."
Zelnick said the overall objective of marketing is to convert awareness into excitement and ultimately an intention to consume, while stressing that marketing cannot make audiences embrace a poor product.
GamesBeat also notes that Twitch streamers restreamed and reacted to the Netflix presentation, potentially extending the audience for Rockstar's reveal beyond Netflix itself.
The comments were made as part of Zelnick's appearance at GamesBeat Insider on September 16. GamesBeat says the full video of its conversation with the Take-Two CEO will be released on September 21, potentially providing further details from the interview.