Take Two CEO: "Controversy, Generally Speaking, is a Good Thing" in Regards to Evolve's DLC

Published: February 5, 2015 1:00 PM /

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Evolve

Evolve's DLC has stirred up a lot of opinions, particularly over: the price of monsters (or being made available through pre-orders); its various special editions, a season pass that doesn't contain the fourth monster, the Behemoth, which is available through its own separate pre-order bonus for Xbox One or the "PC Monster Race Edition"; and going so far as to sell pre-order bonuses before the game had even been shown. The CEO of Evolve's publisher Take-Two spoke on the controversy recently.

Strauss Zelnick, Take-Two's CEO, felt the controversy might not be as negative for the company as others might feel. "Yeah. You're right Mike. There was some controversy start-up by an online post," said Zelnick about Take-Two's earnings call.

"And I guess, controversy, generally speaking, is a good thing. People can argue about the business model. I think we're delivering a fantastic title that's well versed with consumers who pay for it. And all signs are extraordinarily positive."
Evolve's creative director Phil Robb spoke to Destructoid last month about the upcoming game, and touched on the negative reception to Evolve's DLC plans.
“Our plan is one we pushed for as consumers. Never split the community, no pay to win, all that kind of bullsh*t that are hallmarks of DLC plans specifically made to leech money out of people.”

“I don’t like people thinking we’re doing underhanded, dirty sh*t.”

Of course the sales of the game will speak for themselves, but as Geoffrey Zatkin of EEDAR pointed out during a GDC conference, critical reception does seem to have a relationship with the sales of games. Most surprisingly, the difference in sales between an average review score of 89 to 90 can be as much as 400,000 sales.

Zelnick later said in the interview that Evolve is the "only game in history" to win Game of Show at both E3 and Gamescom in the same year.

Evolve releases February 10, 2015 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

What do you think of Evolve's DLC plans? Do you think Evolve DLC is "underhanded?" And of course, is controversy a good thing for game sales?

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