Take-Two: A new GTA every two years would ‘degrade franchise’

Later this year, Grand Theft Auto 5 will release for all major consoles. Although it's technically the 15th game in the series overall, GTA 5 is the first major title in the series since Grand Theft Auto 4 in 2008. Safe to say, fans are pretty excited for its release. But why such a long wait? Why not release a new GTA every other year?

Speaking during the Wedbush Transformational Technologies Conference this week, chief operating officer Karl Slatoff explained that releasing a new Grand Theft Auto game every two years would "degrade" the franchise's value.

"Often times people ask us 'Why don't you come out with Grand Theft Auto every two years?' To us, that doesn't make sense, because Grand Theft Auto, every single time it comes out, is a brand new experience. You can't possibly do that in two years. And if we did that, our product would fatigue and the franchise would degrade from a value perspective."

Slatoff's comments come during a time when many popular franchises, like Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed, are taking on the Call of Duty approach — that is, a new title release every year. Ubisoft recently released details regarding this year's Assassin's Creed title, Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag. Although the trailer was impressive, I'm hard-pressed to say it looks that much different from 2012's Assassin's Creed 3.

There's no doubt that by annualizing a franchise, a company runs the risk of gamer fatigue. This could be why I'm not nearly as excited for Black Flag as I was for AC3. It just looks like the same type of game, despite Ubisoft working on it since 2011. Like Slatoff suggested, with a new release every year it becomes very hard to offer a brand new experience. GTA 5 will attempt to change up gameplay by offering three playable protagonists during its story.

[Gamespot]