Take Two CEO Strauss Zelnick lobbed a low blow at THQ yesterday, all while being interviewed at the MIT Business in Gaming conference regarding Take Two's business practices. For some unknown reason, Zelnick decided to compare his company's strategy for core game development with THQ's.
The most important difference is quality. Take-Two has the highest quality ratings among third-party publishers, according to Metacritic and most people in the industry. Quality really, really, really matters. THQ has had some good games, but their quality levels aren't even remotely … the quality hasn't measured up.
Strategy didn't work and the execution was bad. To put it another way: the food was no good and the portions were small…THQ won't be around in six months.
Granted, he's not the first person to say that THQ is in trouuuble, but it wasn't exactly his place to say anything about it, something that THQ fired back in a statement to Joystiq.
Obviously, Mr. Zelnick's perception of THQ is outdated and inaccurate. His comments are irresponsible and false. Perhaps he would be better off commenting on his own business.
I have to say that I agree with the latter part of THQ's statement. It's not exactly up to another CEO from another business to forecast what another business's outlook is. Leave that for the analysts, who don't know half the time what is going on either.
Zelnick did regret his words and issued the following formal apology to THQ:
While discussing our strategy I spoke out of turn about someone else’s. It was inappropriate and I regret it.
Okay, so maybe that wasn't really an apology, but at least he sounded a little remorseful. Maybe next time he will remember to keep such thoughts, even if they are true, inside his head. That's for renegade journalists and half-baked analysts to publicly announce.
