Kim & Zelnick's Credit Crunch Outlook News

Leading US executives recently shared their thoughts on the current global financial crisis at the Reuters Media Summit, including opinions from the video games industry.

Signalling his displeasure at the term "financial crisis" hitting headlines on a daily basis, Strauss Zelnick, chairman of Take Two Interactive, offered a perplexing emergency room analogy of the current situation:

"We're still seeing the car crash, and the ambulences are still showing up at the scene. Maybe we're in the emergency room, but we're not even in the intensive care unit yet for a lot of these companies. But they will get there."

For the record, Zelnick previously claimed, "I don't think we're in a financial crisis."

Microsoft's Shane Kim offered a slightly more conservative forecast, suggesting that flat growth next year could be considered "a remarkable achievement."

Kim moved on to suggest that further consolidation is likely to continue across the industry, adding "There are a number of mid-tier publishers behind the Electronic Arts and Ubisofts and Activisions of the world who are struggling." A particularly grim possibility for some of the "mid-tier" publishers considering that Activision was itself the subject of a merger earlier in the year.

Finally Kim acknowledged the issues of big money sequels and brands pose to the industry. "If we can find those nuggets that start smaller and can grow into big hits, that's a great thing," before noting the difficulties that smaller teams face in pitching creative ideas.