‘Grand Theft Auto 6’ is probably the most anticipated game in history at this point, and just about everyone with a console or a PC is going to play it whenever it comes out. The game was pushed to late 2026, and there is still speculation about whether it could slip again, but none of that has done anything to slow the hype down. Rockstar has barely shown anything and people are still talking about it every single day.
But the one person who apparently will not be playing ‘GTA 6’ is the CEO of Take-Two Interactive himself. Strauss Zelnick told CNBC that he has not actually played any of ‘GTA 6’ even though he presumably has access to whatever build Rockstar is working on as the head of the company.
Zelnick Said He Is Not The “Consumer-In-Chief “
Zelnick sat down with CNBC back in May 2025, and most of the conversation was about ‘GTA 6’ getting pushed to late 2026 and what that means for Take-Two going forward. He was confident about the game and said, “Rockstar Games is trying to create the best thing anyone’s ever seen in entertainment, not just interactive entertainment.”
This would sound like empty corporate talk from anyone else, but with Rockstar people, they actually take that seriously. But when it came to whether he had played the game himself, he was upfront about it and said he had not.
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He explained that he does not approach his job as someone who plays the games his company puts out and said, “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.”
Zelnick worked in film, television, and music before he got to Take-Two, and he looks at his current job the same way he looked at those, which is as the person who handles the business and not as someone who is there to tell the developers what the game should be.
Zelnick Says His Job Is To Get The Best People And Then Get Out Of Their Way
A lot of gamers are going to hear this and write Zelnick off as another out-of-touch executive, and honestly, that reaction makes sense. The gaming industry has spent the last few years closing studios and laying off thousands of people, and making monetization worse in almost every major franchise, and most of that comes from the business side of these companies.
So when a CEO says he does not even play the games, it is easy to see why people would have a problem with that. But Zelnick also said in the same CNBC interview that his actual job is “to attract, retain, and motivate the best talent in the business, and then get out of their way.”
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Rockstar has been making some of the best games in the industry for over two decades now, and if the guy running the parent company says his approach is to let them do their thing and just keep the money and the business operations running smoothly, then that is probably better than having a CEO who thinks he knows what the game should look like. Zelnick is not creative, and he is fine with that, and Rockstar does not need him to be one.
