If you've ever wondered why developers keep on adding microtransactions to their gam🍨es de👍spite all the backlash, it turns out microtrans are still an incredibly profitable practice. Take 2 Interactive, for example, made $317 million in microtransactions alone from July through September 2019.
According to a report , that money came from the "sale of in-game currency, add-on cont༺ent, and in-game purchases." It made up over a third of the revenue that Take-Two made last quarter. The company's total revenue, $857.9 million, is a huge year-over-year increase for Take-Two, who only made $492.7 million during the same months in 2018. If things keep up at this rate, Take-Two thinks it could make over $3 billion during the 2019 fiscal year.
Take-Two, who published both NBA 2K20 and Borderlands 3 during those months, and while the new Borderlands didn't do much to squeeze gamers' hard-earned cash out of their wallets, NBA 2K20 provided no shortage of ways for Take Two to part its players from their money. Add onto that the additional income from Grand Theft Auto Online and Red Dead Online, and it becomes clear that the🍎y've got a huge revenue stream coming in, and they have no reason to put a stop to their practices.
It's not just because Take Two has an unending love for money -- though I don't doubt that's part of the equation. Running a company as huge as Take Two Interactive requires a lot of money, especially when you're running massively-popular online games. So even though Take Two will be taking in about $3 billion this year, they estimate they'll only will be making about $400 million in net profit, once all 🎃operating costs are paid for.
Yes, that's a lot of money, but if you removed the cash that Take-Two made on microtransactions this year, they would be losing money hand over fist. They've created a microtransaction machine that must be continually fed the mone🐓y from its nickel-and-diming of players in order to stay profitable.
Stopping may be what the most vocal critics want, and they're probably right that we'd all end up with better games if Take-Two did stop. But realistically, it can't stop. The company will remain on this golden treadmꦕill until it falls off -- if it ever does.