AI Won't Replace Humans, Take 2 Chief Believes; Company Bets on New IPs
Take-Two Interactive's CEO sees potential in the use of AI in game development, but believes that artificial intelligence will not replace human creativity.
Commenting on the recently released financial results, Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick, discussed the company's publishing strategy for the coming years. There were many interesting themes in his statements.
The issue of using AI in game development
Currently, the hottest topic in the technology industries is the use of artificial intelligence.
- Strauss Zelnick is excited about the potential of these tools and hopes that they will make developers' work easier. However, he is convinced that AI will not be able to replace humans.
"I wish I could say that advances in AI will make it easy to create hits, but it is obvious that this will not happen. Creating hits requires genius, and data sets plus calculations and large language models do not equal genius. Genius is the domain of humans, and I believe it will remain so."
- Zelnick stressed that AI is based on existing data sets. Thus, artificial intelligence is always looking backward, while in the entertainment industry, those whose vision looks forward are successful.
"A machine will not be able to look ahead. A machine can make predictions based on data sets and using massive computing power and large language models. But mistaking this result for intelligence and creativity is like mistaking a magic trick for magic."
Take-Two's plans for the coming years
The company's report also included information on its release plans for the fiscal years 2024-2025, that is, the period from April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2026. During these 24 months, Take-Two intends to release as many as 52 games. Among them will be:
- 17 games from the "immersive core" category, which means high-budget projects for demanding gamers (examples include the series GTA or NBA2K).
- 7 indie games, which will be released under the Private Division banner.
- 4 mid-core projects, i.e. with a medium budget (mentioned as an example of a title of this type is this year's LEGO 2K Drive).
- 6 remasters/ports of older productions.
- 18 mobile games - this number does not include so-called "hyper-casual" productions, that is, it probably means mobile games by Take-Two itself without titles developed by Zynga.
It is worth recalling here that in fiscal year 2025 Take-Two expects revenues of $8 billion thanks to the release of a number of highly anticipated projects. Most analysts believe that it will only be possible to reach this level if this period sees the release of Grand Theft Auto VI. We wrote more extensively about this yesterday:
Take-Two is betting on new brands
Interestingly, up to 44% of all these games will be new IPs. Take-Two executives realize that not all of these projects will be successful, but they convince investors that this is a necessary risk to ensure the company's long-term growth.
