Take-Two CEO says “generative AI tools are driving costs and time efficiencies” but that its “worlds are handcrafted”

It’s been a difficult week for Take Two Interactive. The company was one of many game publishers which saw their stock plunge following the debut of Google’s AI Genie tool last week, with investors concerned that instantly-generated “playable worlds” would compete with traditional game releases.

CEO Strauss Zelnick will be hoping that the company’s Q3 financial results, released today, will help to turn that round: total net bookings of $1,757 and GAAP Net Revenue of $1,699, which exceeded both the upper limit of previous guidance and Wall Street expectations. It was driven by the ongoing revenue engine that is its Zynga mobile division, along with better-than-expected consumer revenue from NBA 2K (up 30%) and GTA Online (up 27%).

Nevertheless, “we don’t try to organize around the stock price,” Zelnick tells GamesIndustry.biz. “We show up, we do the very best work that we can. Often it goes well and certainly today’s results are nothing short of extraordinary, we’re proud of them. There are other times when we face challenges and we’ll own that as well. The stock price takes care of itself, in the fullness of time.”

Despite Genie’s impact on the business, he is more bullish on AI than his previous comments have implied. “On the topic of AI, I’ve been enthusiastic since the very beginning,” he says. “This company’s products have always been built with machine learning and artificial intelligence. We’ve actually always been a leader in the space, and right now we have hundreds of pilots and implementations across our company, including within our studios. And we’re already seeing instances where generative AI tools are driving costs and time efficiencies.”

He says it’s early days for qualifying those improvements – “we’re beginning to see efficiencies, it’s still early” – but is emphatic that AI use was confined to tools rather than creating game assets.

“Do I think tools by themselves create great entertainment properties? No, there’s no evidence that that’s the case and it won’t be the case in the future. Specifically with regards to GTA 6, Generative AI has zero part in what Rockstar Games is building. Their worlds are handcrafted. That’s what differentiates them. They’re built from the ground up, building by building, street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood. They’re not procedurally generated, they shouldn’t be. That’s what makes great entertainment.”

“We use tools to do everything we do. We use digital technology to do everything we do. We always have and we already are embracing AI as we always have. What I’ve said, and continue to say, is that tools don’t replace creativity and tools are not projects, they’re different things.”

Zelnick remains confident that GTA 6 will hit its revised release date of November 19th, saying that “marketing beats are coming soon”, and won’t be drawn on the company’s ongoing litigation with recently-dismissed staff members having any impact on the game’s path to release.

“We take our labor relations really seriously and we have extraordinary faith in our colleagues and our team overall,” he says. “We think we have the best creative folks in the world and we have extraordinary respect for all those people.”

“We regret that we had to dismiss [staff], we stand by what we did and that was supported in the outcome of the hearing.”

“With regards to that specific matter, the tribunal rejected the union’s application for interim relief, we think that was the right decision. We regret that we had to dismiss [staff], we stand by what we did and that was supported in the outcome of the hearing.”

For all that GTA remains the company’s, and the industry’s, most important release, the rest of Take-Two continues to perform strongly, with another standout quarter for its mobile business Zynda. “Zygna is crushing it,” says Zelnick. “We’re way over plan at our mobile business. It’s up 19% year over year, that vastly exceeded our expectations and has turned out to be a highly accretive transaction.”

This was driven by robust growth in revenue from the company’s stable of mobile games, lead by match-three title Toon Blast, up 43% YoY, and Match Factory, up 17% YoY. There was also a healthy expansion in direct consumer revenues, as the company benefited from the ability to operate its own consumer storefronts outside the App Store and Google Play Store.

“Our direct to consumer business had its strongest quarter on record,” Zelnick points out. “We introduced enhancements for more personalized offers. We had flexible pricing, we reduced the payment friction, we introduced alternative payment methods. And a regulatory environment of course has become more favourable. So direct-to-consumer is a big growth driver.”

“NBA 2K is the biggest sports title in North America, it’s not the biggest sports title in the world. So we think there’s a lot of growth to be had.”

A 10% increase in advertising revenue from mobile titles was also welcomed – “we’re highly optimistic about advertising in our mobile business and we do expect it’ll be a permanent business” – as was a spectacular performance for NBA2K. Last year’s game hit 8 million sales, outpacing last year’s release, and is on track for record net bookings and recurring consumer revenue. Zelnick sees room for further growth.

“We’re always trying to grow the business, and I think what Visual Concepts does so well is it introduces new opportunities for players to engage… it will continue to innovate and lead in that way. I think there’s also a huge upside in the opportunity to have a bigger audience. As big as NBA 2K is – it’s the biggest sports title in North America – it’s not the biggest sports title in the world. One of our competitors has that distinction. So we think there’s a lot of growth to be had in international markets.”

And what of Borderlands 4, which had a debut he described as “a bit softer than [it] would have liked” when it arrived last year? “We’re still supporting Borderlands,” says Zelnick. “We’ll have new content coming, we have updates coming and we still are very optimistic about that title.

“We think we’ll continue to have strong sell-through of titles like that.”