Exploring Strauss Zelnick’s Thoughts on AI and Cloud Gaming for Game Development

Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two, is known for being open with the media and investors about where he thinks technology, especially around games, is going. And during today’s earnings conference call, Zelnick clarified his thoughts on a topic that’s been popular in tech circles lately: artificial intelligence and whether or not it will transform game development.

Zelnick gave a lengthy response to a question about AI technologies like ChatGPT, opening up by noting his own historical skepticism about the overblown technology hype, saying that while AI stands for artificial intelligence, “there is no such thing as artificial intelligence.” .

However, he’s “really excited” about the current leaps AI and machine learning are making, and believes tools are actively being developed that will ultimately reduce gaming development costs. However, he doesn’t think that will affect the overall cost structure – because as development gets easier, developers and publishers will just want to do more.

“Faith among college students [is] that ChatGPT will now allow them to make a request and submit their homework. The problem is when the question is “Describe what actually happened the night of Paul Revere’s ride” and everyone gets the same question about what you do in class and everyone uses ChatGPT, whoops everyone will submit the same essay, I checked last time.

“ChatGPT is today’s handheld calculator. There was no such thing when I was a kid, I hate to admit it, but it’s true, so I had to do math by hand. And then hand calculators came along and parents got excited and thought, ‘Oh, kids don’t have to learn math anymore,’ and the answer is yes, you still have to learn math, turns out you absolutely have to learn math, but you have a tool that makes it easier ChatGPT is the same.

“We’re ushering in a very exciting era of new tools and they’re going to enable our teams and our competitors’ teams to do really interesting things more efficiently, so we’re going to want to do more, we’re going to want to be even more creative. And no, it’s not going to allow anyone to say, “Please develop Grand Theft Auto’s competitor that’s better than Grand Theft Auto,” and then they just send it out there and ship it digitally and that’ll be it. Folks will try, but it won’t happen.”

Any Grand Theft Auto Review from IGN

Additionally, Zelnick offered some commentary on another technological topic: cloud gaming. When quizzed on the matter, Zelnick admitted that Take-Two believed in the technology and was in fact an early supporter of the recently discontinued Google Stadia.

However, he’s not convinced it’s revolutionary, especially after what happened specifically with Stadia.

“Cloud gaming is a technology, not a business model,” he said. “It’s a distribution technology. And in our view, wider adoption in the entertainment business is always a good thing. If we can reach more consumers with our properties, we’re happy to do so as long as the terms make sense, and I think broader distribution over time will likely benefit us in a number of ways, including distribution costs, which I believe will they will decrease over time.

“Even so, I never felt like cloud gaming would represent a seismic shift because I think if you’re willing to pay $60 or $70 for a Frontline title, you’re willing to buy a console , and I think Stadia I figured that out. Offering quality titles to consumers who don’t have consoles will likely have an effect on the fringes, but I don’t think it will be a revolution in the business. I think it will be more of an evolution of the business. And there are still technical challenges that need to be addressed.”

Zelnick also offered IGN comment on other revenue-related topics, including the impact of GTA 6 leaks on Take-Two’s business plans and a very, very loose release window for Ghost Story Games’ Judas.

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

Source: www.ign.com