{"id":653663,"date":"2026-05-07T12:09:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T12:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/653663\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T12:09:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T12:09:17","slug":"an-interview-with-take-two-ceo-strauss-zelnick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/653663\/","title":{"rendered":"An interview with Take Two CEO Strauss Zelnick"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>BioShock. Screenshot: Irrational Games, 2K<\/p>\n

In 20 years of covering the video game beat, I\u2019d probably not spoken more than 20 words with Take Two chairman Strauss Zelnick, who\u2019s been running the company behind NBA 2K, Grand Theft Auto, BioShock and Red Dead Redemption for, you guessed it, nearly 20 years.<\/p>\n

Last week, though, ahead of a panel I was hosting at the iicon event in Las Vegas, I had about 20 minutes to interview Zelnick.<\/p>\n

I could ask one question for each year, I joked, as we settled into our seats on opposite sides of a conference table. Take Two\u2019s longtime head of corporate communications, Alan Lewis, was seated at Zelnick\u2019s side.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t quite conduct our chat that way, but we wound up going through a lot, including\u2026<\/p>\n

The state of BioShock<\/p>\n

The ramifications of the rising costs of game development<\/p>\n

The fate of Take Two\u2019s recent multi-game deal with the NFL<\/p>\n

Some hints about Take Two\u2019s mobile plans<\/p>\n

Whether Zelnick\u2019s answer to me about Civ VII was a good one<\/p>\n

The do\u2019s and don\u2019t\u2019s of NBA 2K microtransactions<\/p>\n

Take Two\u2019s take on the Switch 2<\/p>\n

Oh, and GTA VI (Spoiler: if Zelnick had spilled the beans on the price of the game or a release date for a PC version or whether there will be a polka radio station, that would have been this article\u2019s headline).<\/p>\n

Before all of that, I would learn what it\u2019s like to interview Strauss Zelnick, who is confident, calm and focused on delivering precise answers.<\/p>\n

To wit, I thought I\u2019d start our chat with something fun, a bit insidery but maybe safe for him to share. The team at Take Two\u2019s Rockstar label delays their games a lot, I noted. Of course, those delays, however painful, tend to be worth it. So, I was wondering how Zelnick finds out about them. Take the most recent postponement back in November 2025, when Rockstar said that GTA VI would not hit its May 26, 2026 release date (just 20 days from now!) and would instead come out on November 19, 2026<\/a>. Was that news delivered via a call? An email? How does it work?<\/p>\n

\u201cI work super closely with my team,\u201d Zelnick said. \u201cIt’s a very thin team at Take Two. The entire senior management team is six executives who sit in one hallway and share two assistants. And then, basically, there are two people who head up each of our labels.\u201d<\/p>\n

They meet weekly to discuss their business, he said.<\/p>\n

So no one emails him about a delay? Nothing like that?<\/p>\n

Zelnick craned his neck to look at my left hand. He asked if I was married.<\/p>\n

I am, I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes your partner email you to give you information?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

Fair enough. I didn\u2019t get the sense Zelnick was going to read me the minutes of the management meeting where the GTA VI delay was discussed.<\/p>\n

Slight pivot, maybe I could get some personality insights about one of the most successful gaming execs of the last 20 years, before getting to my big list of questions about specific Take Two games, franchises and policies.<\/p>\n

I asked: How do you deal with delay news like that? Go for a run? Meditate?<\/p>\n

\u201cI tend to default to being very calm,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not a person who freaks out easily.\u201d He noted that he has a daughter with special needs due to an illness, and he shared that that situation had gotten him worked up. It was a personal, family emergency.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, you know, business is not that,\u201d he said. \u201cI have no trouble distinguishing between, like, a business challenge and an emergency.\u201d<\/p>\n

He turned to his left to ask Lewis, his colleague of 17 years, a question.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you ever seen me freak out?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNever,\u201d Lewis replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve seen me upset,\u201d Zelnick told Lewis. \u201cHave you seen me raise my voice? Maybe how many times? Be honest, because we might as well be.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BioShock. Screenshot: Irrational Games, 2K In 20 years of covering the video game beat, I\u2019d probably not spoken…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":653664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[49,48,61],"class_list":["post-653663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}