During Take-Two’s full-year earnings call for investors today, CEO Strauss Zelnick was asked a rather interesting question by one of the individuals on the call. The kids these days, they love Roblox, right? But GTA is very different from Roblox. When the kids grow up, will they want to play GTA? Or will they look for a more sophisticated version of Roblox?
It’s genuinely an interesting question to ask right now, on the cusp of GTA 6’s release. Per the Entertainment Software Association’s 2025 Essential Facts report, kids in Gen Alpha and Gen Z are playing more games than any generation ahead of them. 83 percent of Gen Alpha plays at least an hour per week. They’re also, per Newzoo, more likely to spend money on video games. But they aren’t necessarily playing the same games as their older cohorts; increasingly, younger players are using games like Roblox, Minecraft, and Fortnite as social spaces to hang out with friends. Critically, these games are all free-to-play, with optional microtransactions, making them more accessible for kids and not requiring them to beg their parents for a full-priced game.
So then, the question: How does that translate to GTA? Will these kids want to play GTA when they grow up, or will they be searching for a more sophisticated Roblox? In the questioner’s words: “Is a young person that’s playing Roblox, are they going to want to play $80 Grand Theft Auto 6 when they grow up?” [Note: The $80 descriptor was the questioner’s phrasing; Take-Two still has not confirmed any particular pricing at this time.]
Zelnick’s response: Yes, they will naturally do so, as they become more mature themselves. Here’s his full comment:
It’s the contrary. When entertainment properties are aimed at children, I don’t know if you have children, but right around the age of like 10 or 11, they do not want to be children anymore. They want to be teenagers. So one of the issues, and this is not in the way of being critical of anyone else in the industry but one of the issues with children’s programming, whether that’s linear entertainment or interactive entertainment, is that children reach a certain point, they don’t want to be engaged with kids’ programming anymore, even if it’s appealing to them. So it’s not that a certain kind of kid-oriented interactive entertainment is necessarily a feeder to what we do in certain parts of this company. Remember, we do also make plenty of entertainment around here that’s available for all audiences. But with regard to our M-rated titles, it’s not necessarily the case that something else is a feeder to it. It’s a different business. But it is a business that is only available if you’re 17 or above, and I think if you engage with interactive entertainment and you’re 17 or above, it’s very difficult for me to imagine that you wouldn’t be incredibly interested in our M-rated titles, specifically one that is coming up.
It’s probably worth pointing out that he’s not off-base here, at least by what data shows. A recent study by the National Research Group reported by the LA Times noted that the top five most popular games among Gen Alpha were, yes, Roblox, Minecraft, and Fortnite, but also Pokémon and…yup, GTA! The ESRB doesn’t sign off on them playing it, sure, but it doesn’t seem to be stopping them. It probably doesn’t hurt that GTA Online is its own sandbox game that can be used as a social space. So even if Roblox isn’t intended as a feeder into GTA, it’s probably doing a little of that work inadvertently.
Today’s earnings call also reaffirmed that for those who want to wash down their Roblox with some GTA, they won’t have to wait much longer for a new one: November 19, 2026 is still the release date. Judas and BioShock aren’t so lucky, as we also learned that we won’t see either of them for at least another year, but in the meantime, it sounds like Red Dead Redemption 2 is seriously popping off, coming out of its best year since its launch year.