Take-Two says AI game cloning is a creative issue, not a financial one, days before GTA 6

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick says AI game cloning is a creative threat, not a financial one — and he is calling on AI companies to protect other people's intellectual property, not just their own. The remarks came in an interview with IGN, published on November 9, days before the launch of GTA 6, set for November 19 on PS5 and Xbox Series only, with no PC version.

Asked whether AI-made clones of GTA 6 threaten the business, Zelnick said: “I don't think it's a financial matter, in terms of a threat to our business. I do think it's a creative matter. It's important to everyone, our developers and our consumers alike, to deliver the experience Rockstar envisions. And at the same time, of course, we protect our intellectual property vigilantly.”

The message to Anthropic and OpenAI

Zelnick also addressed Anthropic's decision to restrict Claude Code from recreating existing games — a move Geekiki already covered when the company loosened part of the restriction to allow original games. On AI companies, he said: “I think all companies should be protecting intellectual property, their own and everyone else's. And if you're in the intellectual property business, which Anthropic is and OpenAI is, then it seems ironic on the one hand to stomp on someone else's IP and hope that yours is protected.”

There has been no public response from Anthropic or OpenAI to Zelnick's remarks so far. There is also no confirmation that any Take-Two game has been cloned with Claude, ChatGPT or another tool — the executive did not point to any specific case of infringement.

Technical and legal defenses beefed up

On the fiscal Q2 2027 earnings call, also on November 9, Zelnick said the company is “utterly focused on enhancing our technical defenses and enhancing our legal activities appropriately.” According to IGN, he acknowledged that piracy has always existed in entertainment and that the problem is likely to be manageable — but that the company is not being cavalier about it in the least.

The reason for the concern is the wave of AI-assisted decompilation in 2026: AI coding tools have already been used to build unofficial ports — such as Zelda: Ocarina of Time on iPad and Shadow of the Colossus on PC — and IGN also cites Minecraft running inside X and a GTA 5 briefly playable in a browser before it was taken down. With GTA 6 coming only to consoles, the fear is that an unofficial PC version appears soon after launch.

Former Rockstar North technical director Obbe Vermeij told Rock Paper Shotgun that Rockstar may be keen to release the PC version sooner precisely to avoid losing money to AI knockoffs. Reports point to the PC version about six months after the console launch, in early 2027 — but Rockstar has confirmed no date.

What is already known about GTA 6

Take-Two has already confirmed that development of GTA 6 is finished and the launch is still set for November 19, and the game's preload broke a broadband record in the UK. Zelnick had already said before that GTA 6 is “handmade” and that Rockstar did not use generative AI to develop it — which gives weight to the creative-vision defense he is making now: for Take-Two, an AI-made clone does not just steal sales; it steals the experience Rockstar designed.

Image credit: Grand Theft Auto series logo, by Rockstar Games / Take-Two Interactive, via Wikimedia Commons (public-domain text logo; trademarked).

Sources

This article was produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence, based on public posts and internet sources, and reviewed editorially. Consult the original sources for more details.

By Muse