Why Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick Won't Play Grand Theft Auto 6

Grand Theft Auto 6 is perhaps the most highly anticipated game of all time, to the point where even years of radio silence do little to dim the lights of its rushing hype train. Indeed, just about anyone with a modern gaming console or PC will probably play GTA 6 whenever it eventually launches. Everyone except, it would seem, Strauss Zelnick himself.

Zelnick is an accomplished businessman whose career highlights include serving as the chairman of CBS and the founding of private equity firm ZMC, but most gamers know him as the CEO of Take-Two Interactive, a position he’s held since 2011. During that time, he oversaw the production and rollout of Grand Theft Auto 5, Max Payne 3, and Red Dead Redemption 2, alongside notable non-Rockstar games like BioShock Infinite. In short, the man is no stranger to big gaming success, and regardless of one’s personal opinion of him, it’s clear that he brings key business experience to the table, which will hopefully facilitate a smooth Grand Theft Auto 6 launch. Whether GTA 6 lands with a splash or a thud, though, it doesn’t seem like Mr. Zelnick himself will be playing it, according to comments he has made in the past.

Why Strauss Zelnick Won’t Play Grand Theft Auto 6, According to Strauss Zelnick

Zelnick spoke with CNBC in May 2025, mostly about Grand Theft Auto 6 behing pushed into late 2026—something that could get an encore, if ongoing GTA 6 delay speculation proves to be accurate. In the interview, Zelnick expressed a great deal of confidence about GTA 6‘s prospects in spite of the highly publicized delay, saying that “Rockstar Games is trying to create the best thing anyone’s ever seen in entertainment, not just interactive entertainment.” Such a lofty statement would likely have been written off as hyperbole in any other case, but with Rockstar and GTA 6, it sounds rather accurate.

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At any rate, Rockstar’s “best thing anyone’s ever seen” endeavors don’t seem to have moved Strauss Zelnick too much on a personal level, as he later told CNBC that he hasn’t actually played any of GTA 6, despite presumably having access to an in-progress build as the Take-Two chief. He clarified that he’s “not a gamer” nor the “consumer-in-chief” of Take-Two Interactive. Naturally, this suggests that Zelnick doesn’t approach his position with the mindset of a gamer, but rather a CEO with entertainment experience. He went on to compare his current role to his previous ones through this lens:

“I think being the consumer-in-chief in the entertainment business as the CEO is probably a mistake. I wasn’t the consumer-in-chief in the movie business or the television business or the music business, even though I certainly could read a script and I definitely love music… but that’s not my role.”

Strauss Zelnick Is Not a Gamer

Picking on CEOs is a favorite pasttime of many gamers, understandably so: corporate greed has dealt a great deal of damage to the gaming medium and the industry at large, resulting in unfair studio closures, predatory monetization, cut corners, and workplace misconduct of various kinds. As such, I imagine that a lot of video game fans will scoff at Zelnick’s above comments, viewing them as yet more evidence of how “out of touch” this particular businessman is.

I can’t say I blame anyone for jumping to this conclusion initially. After all, how can you assess the quality of a game if you don’t enjoy video games yourself? I won’t pretend to speak as an authority on this matter, but I also think you can view Zelnick’s comments from a different, more optimistic angle.

Why It’s Good that Strauss Zelnick Doesn’t Look at Grand Theft Auto 6 as a ‘Consumer-in-Chief’

In most cases, and especially when it comes to hugely expensive properties like Grand Theft Auto, we currently just have to accept that video game production is partially controlled by the “money men,” as it were. There are the creatives—the directors, animators, writers, et cetera—and then there are the Strauss Zelnicks of the world, those who ensure production and funding go smoothly. Maybe having a personal relationship with gaming can confer some sort of benefit for these money men, but it can also make them more likely to meddle in the actual development of a given project. Since someone like Strauss Zelnick has nothing to offer Rockstar on the creative end, it’s good that he understands his role in this dynamic.

This isn’t meant to be disparaging to Zelnick, who I imagine would agree with me. In the same CNBC interview, Zelnick said his job is “to attract, retain, and motivate the best talent in the business, and then [get] out of their way.” Rockstar Games has proven time and again that it knows how to make a good product, so “getting out of the way” is probably the best thing that someone in Zelnick’s position can do. Zelnick seems to see himself as the grease, rather than one of the gears, which is a good philosophy for a CEO to have, in my opinion.