Grand Theft Auto faces no threat from AI, Take-Two boss says

When Google unveiled a new look at its experimental Project Genie generative AI tool earlier this year, AAA game companies like Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two Interactive saw their stock prices take a noticeable hit. After all, why would you need thousands of developers to make big, explorable worlds when Google promised that kind of interactivity could be generated with mere text prompts?

But Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick doesn’t sound worried about Project Genie or similar generative AI projects in a new interview with The Game Business.

“I was kind of stunned by the market’s reaction, because the market’s reaction was somehow seeing it as a threat to what we do, when it’s quite obvious that creation tools are beneficial for our industry,” Zelnick told The Game Business Show host Christopher Dring in a new video interview. “I think the bear case for big entertainment companies is somehow that AI tools will mean everyone can create hits, doesn’t stand to reason.

“These tools may help you create assets, but that won’t help you create hits. There are loads of assets out there now. It doesn’t matter if you push a button to create an asset, or it takes you six weeks, at the end of the day, you have an asset. And thousands of mobile games are launched every year, and there are a handful of hits.”

Zelnick said that using tools to generate quality assets “that might look like NBA 2K or EA Sports FC or Red Dead Redemption” is possible with AI. But that creating a hit of the magnitude of those franchises “is a completely different animal and does require human engagement [and] human creativity.”

In other words, Zelnick said, generative AI does not level the playing field “even the littlest bit” between prompt-writers and seasoned game developers. There’s already plenty of technology that allows people to create video games, as proven by the thousands released every year. But the hits generally come from large entertainment companies and, occasionally, the breakout indie developer.

“The notion that somehow new tools would allow an individual to push a button and generate a hit, market a hit, and bring it to many millions of consumers around the world, it’s a laughable notion,” Zelnick said. “It’s just never been the case with entertainment.”

To further his point, Zelnick — who notes that he is pro-technology and talks up AI’s ability to boost efficiency and handle “mundane office tasks” — talked about AI-generated music. “Right now, there are programs that allow you to put out a prompt and get a professionally recorded song spit back out at you,” he said. “It sounds like a song, but I defy you to listen to it more than once.”

Take-Two Interactive plans to publish Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto 6 in November. No doubt we’ll get some commentary on generative AI in that highly anticipated game as well.