Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Rockstar Games’ parent company Take-Two Interactive, spoke about the development of Grand Theft Auto 6 in an interview with The Game Business, and called the idea that an AI by itself could make a game of the same scale “laughable”. He went on to talk about Google’s Project Genie—an AI-based tool that can generate simple interactive experiences for up to 60 seconds.
He noted that, while Project Genie’s outputs can potentially “look like NBA 2K or EA Sports FC or Red Dead Redemption,” actually creating interactive game worlds tends to involve a lot more effort, and “is a completely different animal and does require human engagement [and] creativity.”
Zelnick believes that, while there is a potential use case for this AI-based technology, at least when it comes to making assets, it ultimately won’t help anyone “create hits”. Even when it comes to asset creation, he noted that there are plenty of assets available for developers to use.
“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,” he said. “I think the […] 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.”
“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 continued. “It’s just never been the case with entertainment.”
In the same interview, Zelnick also spoke about how he isn’t too worried about the older audience for Grand Theft Auto 6 having to juggle real-life responsibilities with spending time in a massive open-world game. He noted that Take-Two Interactive has games that “appeal to all audiences,” and that fans of the GTA franchise that grew up playing 4 and 5 will be able to engage with GTA 6 just fine.
“I think we’re gonna have a lot of 17-year-olds playing GTA 6,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any risk of being like, ‘All right, yeah, if I didn’t play five or four or three or two or one, I’m not showing up.’ I think we’ll be able to engage every appropriate individual in GTA 6.”
Grand Theft Auto 6 is being developed for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, and is currently slated for release on November 19th. While the franchise has traditionally also seen PC versions coming out some time after the console launch, neither Rockstar Games nor Take-Two Interactive have made any such announcement yet.
