Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick Doesn't Play Video Games

The head of one of the world's largest video game publishers doesn't play video games. Strauss Zelnick, chairman and CEO of Take-Two Interactive Software, has steered the company through a 1,600% stock increase since 2011 without ever holding a controller himself.

According to a wide-ranging interview at Take-Two's Manhattan headquarters, Zelnick avoids the very vices his flagship franchise sells. The 68-year-old executive doesn't drink, smoke, or own a gun. He's never received a speeding ticket. He trains most days, sometimes twice daily, maintaining what he describes as peak fitness levels.

"I don't think being consumer-in-chief really helps a CEO be effective in this business," Zelnick told Business Insider. He does watch others play. "I see the whole thing. I'm just not the one holding the controller."

The stakes for his current project are among the highest in entertainment history. Grand Theft Auto VI is set to release this fall after a 13-year gap between major installments. Industry analysts estimate development costs between $1 billion and $1.5 billion, though Zelnick declined to confirm specific figures beyond noting it "was expensive."

The franchise's financial track record justifies the investment. Grand Theft Auto V surpassed $1 billion in sales within three days of its 2013 release, a record that still stands. The game has sold more than 225 million copies worldwide and remains the best-selling title in the U.S. by both unit and dollar sales over the past decade.

Global consumer spending on video game software and hardware has more than tripled to $250 billion since then, according to analytics firm Aldora Intelligence. But the landscape has shifted. Consumers face higher prices for gas, healthcare, and consoles. Sony even raised the price of its nearly six-year-old PlayStation 5 by about $100 last month.

The tension surrounding GTA VI isn't just economic. It's also technological. Take-Two's nearly 13,000 employees are encouraged to use AI tools such as Anthropic's Claude and Google's Gemini. Zelnick says AI is already handling low-value, time-consuming tasks, freeing staff for more meaningful work.

"AI will vastly increase efficiency and productivity and give us an opportunity to enhance quality," he says. Still, Zelnick is skeptical those gains will translate into cheaper or faster-made blockbuster games. The new tools tend to fuel bigger ambitions rather than reduce production demands.

"Everyone understands this creates more work, not less work," he says. "When you make certain things easier, your appetite gets greater."

Not every player or employee shares that optimism. A 2025 survey by gaming analytics firm Quantic Foundry found that 85% of players held a negative view of generative AI, especially when used for creative elements like art and storytelling. Among industry professionals, more than half now say generative AI is having a negative impact on the sector, according to a January study by the GDC Festival of Gaming, research firm Omdia, and the media outlet Game Developer.

Zelnick says Take-Two's employees largely don't share that skepticism. He notes an employee in Europe recently asked why the technology isn't more accessible, as it wasn't initially deployed across all of Take-Two's several dozen offices worldwide.

Investors, however, have been skittish. After Google released its AI game-making tool Genie 3 to the public in January, shares of Take-Two and several other video game companies tumbled. In a recent research note, Morgan Stanley analyst Matthew Cost wrote that Genie 3 highlights how AI tools could lower barriers to game creation and potentially compete with current video game producers. Take-Two's stock is down roughly 11% year to date.

Zelnick dismisses those concerns. "Tools that enable us to make great assets have always been available to our competitors," he says. "Why is it that we're making hits and others are not?"

He also notes that players have been able to make their own versions of Grand Theft Auto and other professionally made games for decades through modding. While some mods draw thousands of players, they don't pose a threat to Take-Two. The company acquired one of the largest GTA modding platforms, FiveM, in 2023 for an undisclosed sum.

"The way we looked at it is, wow, there are hundreds of thousands of people out there who like to engage with GTA in this way," Zelnick says. "How about if instead of trying to beat them, we join them?"

The irony is almost too perfect to ignore. A man who doesn't drink, smoke, or play video games oversees a company selling digital experiences built around gun fights, bank heists, drug trafficking, and sex with prostitutes. He's a family man, philanthropist, and workout buff steering the world's most violent entertainment property toward its biggest launch yet.

Whether GTA VI can recoup its billion-dollar-plus investment remains the real question. The game industry has exploded with 19,000 games released in 2023 for consoles and PC, compared to just under 2,000 in 2014, according to consulting firm Bain & Company. Competition has intensified while economic uncertainty looms.

Zelnick's approach to development delays offers some insight into his philosophy. Unlike others in the industry, Rockstar Games doesn't participate in "crunch"—long shifts and intense working to meet a deadline. The company's focus is first and foremost on making a quality game.

"It's sort of like when I was in college. I never pulled an all-nighter because I was good about doing my homework," Zelnick told Business Insider. "You do your homework, you don't pull an all-nighter."

That discipline has paid off historically. But whether players will actually pay three-digit prices for the next installment remains to be seen. The market has changed, and so has the audience. Zelnick's personal habits may be pristine, but the business he runs is anything but.

Time will tell if the straight-laced CEO can deliver a product that satisfies both investors and the millions of gamers who've been waiting over a decade. Until then, he'll keep watching others play while someone else holds the controller.

Artūras Malašauskas is an AI Systems Integrator with 20+ years of production-grade web engineering experience. He has designed, shipped, and scaled enterprise Python/PHP systems for logistics, SaaS, and public-sector clients. For the past year, he has focused exclusively on AI integrations: deploying open-source LLMs, building generative media pipelines (image, audio, video), and engineering multi-agent workflows for real production environments. His standard: reproducibility, security, cost-efficient inference—no vaporware. He documents and evaluates emerging AI tooling, separating verified capabilities from marketing noise. Technical editor at: muza-ai.eu, ai-verslas.lt, ai-naujinos.lt Connect on LinkedIn