Grand Theft Auto publisher gets serious about social games

Take-Two, publisher of Grand Theft Auto, seems to be taking a more serious look at social games and MMOs after recent earnings show that digital content drove 15% of the company's fourth quarter revenue. (In the meantime, Call of Duty and World of Warcraft maker Activision Blizzard says 50% of its revenues came from digital sales in the first quarter this year).

Most of Take Two's digital profits came from add-on content for Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, Borderlands and Sid Meier's Civilization, but Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick says the company is looking into other digital offerings that might be able to, according to AllThingsD, 'generate significant revenues.'

One of those money makers will be the upcoming Civilization World for Facebook, which is currently in beta and expected to launch sometime this summer. And, there are -- apparently -- several other projects of that ilk in progress.

Does that mean we'll see a Facebook rendition of Grand Theft Auto? I wouldn't bet my first born (or my second) on it -- though I could imagine some kind of social rendition of Take-Two/Rockstar's recent (and very accessible) action/adventure game LA Noire, maybe something similar to Red Dead Redemption: Gunslingers. I also expect that Take-Two will be eyeballing its more successful sports games -- like Top Spin and Major League Baseball 2K -- and see if either of these can make a splash in the still very experimental sports gaming scene on Facebook and other social networks.

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[Via All Things D]