Zelnick explains the real reason behind the Netflix Extended Look

Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two Interactive, has explained why Rockstar premiered Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look with Netflix: it was not just a long trailer, but a way of teaching people how to play.

Speaking to GamesBeat, as reported by indy100, Zelnick said that in certain cases you have to offer “something that’s actually called a tutorial” to tell people “this is how you play it” before they are willing to spend their money trying. “What Rockstar did was incredible but there was an element of tutorial baked in there,” he added: the studio “figured out how to do that to entertain us for 26 minutes while also explaining how you’re going to play the game: and here’s the gameplay.”

The reading makes commercial sense: GTA VI also reaches an audience that does not buy every entry, and a 26-minute video walking through systems (driving, robberies, stealth, activities) is worth more with that audience than a cinematic trailer. Premiering it with Netflix, outside the usual YouTube circuit, points the same way.

The video, released on August 27, shows 26 minutes of gameplay captured on PlayStation 5 and is still available on Rockstar’s official channel. We have the full video page and the scene-by-scene summary of what it confirmed.