The launch of the Epic Games Store has been surprisingly controversial, primarily because of Epic's willingness to spend some of that sweet Fortnite cash on high-profile exclusives. A number of gamers don't care for what they see as fragmentation of the market that's forcing them to use multiple storefronts and run multiple launchers: Steam, Origin, Uplay, Battle.net, Bethesda, and now Epic.Â
One publisher that could probably leap successfully into that fray, but apparently isn't going to, is Take-Two. The strength of Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption alone would make a proprietary storefront hard to ignore, but CEO Strauss Zelnick told GamesIndustry that he thinks it's difficult to attract an audience "through a wholly-owned captive site."Â
"If you have something incredibly powerful, then I suppose you can say to consumers that it's only available here. But generally speaking, when it comes to broad-based entertainment offerings, you are better placed to be where the consumer is, rather than indicating to the consumer where they need to be," Zelnick said. Â
"If your focus is solely on capturing retail margin, then you have to be very convinced you're going to be a great retailer. That's not something that's in our DNA. We make entertainment. We're really not a retailer."Â
At the same time, Zelnick doesn't view the Epic Store as a "disruption," and said that as long as consumers benefit and it makes sense as a business model, Take-Two will support it—just not, apparently, by tying Take-Two down to exclusivity deals.  Â
"We want to be where the consumer is," he said. "We see competition on the retail side to be a good thing. It just means more distribution."Â