Strauss Zelnick
Analyst · Daniel Ernst with Hudson Square Research
So we always prefer that our labels talk about our marketing plans, and we tend not to discuss them on the call. I appreciate the thoughtful question, and we give a lot of thought to just the questions you raise. I think the biggest difference here is -- than the last release is, when Rockstar came out with downloadable content for GTA IV, this was groundbreaking stuff. It had never been done before. And they took a big creative risk and delighted consumers and made money in the process. So it was really a great result. And we, at this company, and our label, specifically, have learned a lot about what consumers want. But what we find is, when you have a hit product, there is an opportunity to continue to delight consumers with ongoing content, and that always remains our focus. Our focus around here did not start with how do we look at our consumers, they showed up in droves and how do we extract more money from their pockets. We genuinely don't. What we think about is, the reason our consumers showed up is because we delighted them in a way they didn't expect. As high as their expectations were, we blew them out of the water and we did that because of the extraordinary creative work done at Rockstar. And then that's the way this company operates. And then having done that, we think, okay, now what is the appropriate way to price this experience so that we can appropriately compensate all of our stakeholders, the people who create the products, the employees who work at this company and of course, our shareholders? And we've always looked at pricing all of our content with an eye towards giving people more than they pay for, trying to overdeliver. So GTA Online is free with the game. And it's the first time we've ever done anything like this. It's incredibly ambitious and taxing and challenging. And consumers love it, and they're showing up in great magnitudes. As Karl said, there is currency in the game and there are plans, at some point, to make that currency available for cash payments in addition to other ways you can earn currency in the game. We'll let Rockstar talk more about that. We don't need to talk more about that today. But for sure, we're commercial folks, and we are in business. But where we start here is with a passion for what we do, then we think about how what we do is going to delight consumers. And then, and only then, do we think about how we're going to monetize it.