Because that sacred line called profit must always go up, we are seeing more and more game studios announce their intention to incorporate various forms of AI tech. PUBG publisher Krafton just recently referred to themselves as an AI-first company, the big wigs up top at EA are reportedly pushing for it hard, it is, seemingly, unfortunately, inevitable. Which makes Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick’s comments on it ever so slightly surprising – but only slightly, we’ll get back to that.
Zelnick made an appearance at CNBC’s Technology Executive Council Summit on Tuesday, where he was asked about his thoughts on the “promise” of AI in game development. Right off the bat, the CEO reminds us that he is still the CEO of publicly-traded company, as he did make it clear he’s not a “naysayer” of AI. But he does actually seem to understand how limited it currently is, and crucially, for him and Take-Two, how risky it is for their intellectual property.
“We have to be really careful not to step on other people’s intellectual property, and we don’t ours stepped on,” Zelnick explained. “As you know, if you create intellectual property with AI, you can’t protect it. We’re in the intellectual property business, we care about our rights, we care about other people’s rights, and we have to protect what we make.”
That’s where the comments aren’t very surprising, as it just seems like Zelnick is the very rare CEO that doesn’t want to force AI right this very second because it risks their precious IP, IP that includes giants like GTA and NBA, as well as still very popular series like Borderlands.
This is where the surprising element comes in! Zelnick went on to note how in the event that AI has no constraints, he thinks whatever you’d make wouldn’t be very good. “Could we push a button tomorrow and create an equivalent to the ‘Grand Theft Auto’, and the marketing plan, and here it is? The answer is no. A, you can’t do that yet, and B, I am of the view that you wouldn’t end up with anything very good. You end up with something pretty derivative.”
Zelnick goes on to say how AI is just big datasets, and defines them as “backward-looking,” as in it’s always working off of something else that’s already been made rather than looking forward. Perhaps his most surprising line is this one: “there is no creativity that can exist, by definition, in any AI model, because it is data driven.”
I’d like to be very clear that I really do think Zelnick is currently only hesitant about implementing the use of AI at scale because of his aforementioned concerns over IP. I’m just hoping (yes, a useless thing to do here) that maybe some other CEOs and shareholders might see the GTA guys holding off and think maybe we should too. Can’t wait for that to not happen!
