www.gamesindustry.biz
Take-Two's Strauss Zelnick on tariffs, AI and GTA 6"We're looking over our shoulders at our competition. They're not asleep" Feature by Rachel Weber Contributor Published on Feb. 6, 2025 As Take-Two Interactive reported strong results for Q3 FY 2025 and readied investors for a blockbuster year that includes the release of Rockstar's long anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6, Strauss Zelnick, Chairman and CEO of Take-Two Interactive, took the time to talk to GamesIndustry.biz about the results and some of the biggest issues facing the industry in 2025.The interview below has been edited for brevity and clarity.Take-Two has a diverse portfolio this year, could you speak about the balance between more annualized properties and the space you give creative teams for more long term projects?This is a strategy that we began talking about when we took over the company in 2007. So it's been a long time in development and we've had years where, you know, where we were able to execute it rather well and other years where we just haven't been able to do it, but our view has always been that the only titles that really ought to be annualised are selected number of sports entertainment titles and pretty much everything else should not be annualised for two reasons;Number one, to make sure that you put out as perfect a product as possible to please your consumers and to build a franchise as opposed to dilute a franchise over time.And secondly, to create anticipation, to create desire. And if you know something that's coming like clockwork every year, I think it's harder to create that anticipation and desire. We're seeing that extraordinary anticipation with regard to GTA 6, for example. but I think you're also going to see anticipation with regard to Mafia. Right now, today, in Early Access, we've seen the enormous enthusiasm around the Civilisation 7.So when we get it right, we have a year like the next calendar year, this calendar year shaping up to be, where we have beloved franchises bringing back iterations that do take years, sometimes many years to create. And also having our annualised portfolio, and then when you layer on top of that catalogue, our live services and our mobile business, we feel like we're in a pretty good place. Image credit: Rockstar GamesCould you talk more about the mobile business, because it feels as though sometimes people forget what a powerhouse Zynga is behind the scenes. How have you seen that mobile market shifting?Well, the good news is that we're back in growth mode. So, you know, mid- 2022, the mobile business began to have a downturn really for the first time in its history and now the industry is back to modest growth. In our case, our current consumer spending was up 6% in the quarter, year over year and that was driven by the addition of Match Factory, which is this terrific hit that our studio Peak has created and which continues to grow. But we have seen some moderation and some legacy titles as well, so the business is not without its challenges.That said, with the addition of Zynga, we're a company that will do around five and a half plus billion in net bookings this year. We're a profitable business. We expect to be very, very profitable and sequentially to set records for net bookings in fiscal 2026 and 2027 and without the mobile portfolio, that wouldn't be the case.Also, we have to be where the consumer is, and our mobile business addresses a somewhat different consumer than our console and PC business addresses in that our mobile business tends to skew more female and tends to skew older, so now we serve every interactive entertainment consumer on earth in one form or another.How is Take-Two as a business feeling about the introduction of tariffs and the possibilities around that?Well, our industry association, the ESA, has been weighing in and in general, and I think most economists would agree, a world without tariffs is a better place.Now, tariffs do play a role when they're necessary and they could be necessary if, for example, a country is in the business of dumping on other economies, but apart from that situation, generally speaking, I am a free trader, so I think like everyone else in business, I'm somewhat concerned about the possibility of trade wars, but I'm encouraged that we seem to be avoiding those with Mexico and Canada through discussion and negotiation and I'm cautiously optimistic that that will lead to a good result.In regards to some of Take-Two's older properties there's still an active community around titles like GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2, is that just Rockstar special sauce or is it a direct result of the Take-Two way of managing those teams and the ecosystem?Look, I think Rockstar does have a special sauce, I think you see it reflected in the fact that GTA 5 has sold in over 210 million units, Red Dead Redemption 2 has sold in more than 70 million units and GTA Online remains this powerful force, even though it's been in the market over 10 years.Rockstar, I think, sort of alone in the business, seeks perfection and we as an organization, we hope, provide the resources, human and financial, to allow them to pursue what they're passionate about and to seek perfection. So it's nothing extraordinary. Right now Red Dead Online, for example, has its highest concurrent users on Steam ever, it's nothing short of amazing. No one else really can tell that story and I think that's because no one else has aggregated the talent that Rockstar has aggregated. Also Rockstar has this extraordinary focus on two titles, on Red Dead and on GTA, and we are not only willing but happy to provide that support because that is what Rockstar is passionate about personally.A lot of people are relieved to see GTA 6 is still on track for a fall 2025 release, is there anything you can say about it at all at this point? And gossip or worries you want to nip in the bud?I haven't heard any sort of gossip or worries, I think to the contrary, I've heard a lot of enthusiasm and as I like to say, we never claim success before we have it. We all run scared, as an organization we just do. We're looking over our shoulders at our competition. They're not asleep, they're not waiting for us to do something.We have a mission that we take really seriously to create the best entertainment properties on earth of any type and Rockstar, I think, embodies that mission. But folks at Rockstar would say the same thing, which is we're doing the very best we can. We'll wait, we'll see, and the results will speak for themselves. Image credit: Take-Two InteractiveAnother hot topic at the moment, and you've mentioned it in the past, is AI's role in the industry. What role does it play in Take-Two's strategy going forward and are there any guardrails you think the industry needs to be considering in terms of AI? Artificial intelligence is an oxymoron, there's no such thing. Machine learning, machines don't learn. Those are convenient ways to explain to human beings what looks like magic. The bottom line is that these are digital tools and we've used digital tools forever. I have no doubt that what is considered AI today will help make our business more efficient and help us do better work, but it won't reduce employment.To the contrary, the history of digital technology is that technology increases employment, increases productivity, increases GDP and I think that's what's going to happen with AI. I think the video game business will probably be on the leading, if not bleeding, edge of using AI.But in terms of the guardrails, if you mean, you know, not infringing on other people's intellectual property by, you know, poaching their LLMs, yeah, we're not going to do that. Moreover, if we did, we couldn't protect that, we wouldn't be able to protect our own IP. So of course, we're mindful of what technology we use to make sure that it respects others' intellectual property and allows us to protect our own. Apart from that, I really can't think of any new guardrails that need to be implemented.
