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Battleborn has not launched to the commercial success Take-Two had anticipated, chairman and CEO Strauss Zelnick has said.
User numbers for the hero shooter haven’t been revealed – yet rival Activision Blizzard is boasting of Overwatch’s 15 million players – but it’s fair to say Take-Two wanted more from the Gearbox action title.
“On May 3, 2K released Battleborn, a new intellectual property from Gearbox Software, the makers of our popular Borderlands Series. While the game launched to solid reviews, its performance in the market has been below our expectations,” explained Zelnick during the publisher’s Q1 earnings call.
However, the game’s failure means there’s plenty of room for future success.
“We think there remains an opportunity to grow the audience for this unique experience over time, and 2K will continue to drive engagement and recurrent consumer spending on the title through add-on content and virtual currency,” added Zelnick.
The CEO later added: “We’re being very frank about where we are, because we’re a transparent company. We’re still delivering new content to Battleborn. Audiences love Battleborn. We still have virtual currency coming for Battleborn. We’re not counting it out for a minute. We’re just telling you where we’re at now.”
Additionally, Zelnick says one game’s failure to live up to expectations will not change the company’s core tenets of innovation and creativity.
“We fully support our team’s vision to push the envelope in order to set new benchmarks for our company and our industry with the understanding that in a highly creative enterprise, not everything always turns out the way one might like,” he said. “Given the strength and diversity of our company, we have the ability to take these risks and weather any unexpected shortfalls that may arise.”
Source: 2K Investor Relations, Seeking Alpha
