Take-Two boss reflects on 'entropy,' and the future of Grand Theft Auto. 'If we don't try new things... we run the risk of burning furniture to heat the home.

Strauss Zelnick is the chairman and CEO of Take-Two Interactive. He has presided over more than 205,000,000 Grand Theft Auto games, one of the most popular and consistent series of videogames of all time.

Zelnick's philosophical musings came during last weeks Q2 2025 Investor Call, in response a question regarding whether consumers are more receptive to old things or new things. Take-Two is the parent company of Rockstar Games and at first glance, it's known for its "legacy" IP, most notably Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, etc. Zelnick seems to envision a future where these games aren't as big as they were in the past 20 years.

Zelnick stated, "We know a sequel is a lower risk proposition than a new intellectual property." "But everything degrades." Even though our sequels to franchises are usually better than their predecessors - and we're proud of this because it's not the norm in the industry - the truth is that there's a thing called decay. It's part of physics, human life, and everything on earth.

"And so, in the end, everything decays, including hit titles. If we don't try new things and make new intellectual property, then we are--to say we are resting on our laurels is really understating it. We run the risk of burning down the furniture in order to heat the home. "That's not a good thing."

Zelnick said Take-Two has "high hit ratios" in this industry, but acknowledged that "risk profiles" for new IPs are higher than those of rolling with known quantities and that Take-Two "gets it wrong" from time to time. He added that "if we hadn't been willing to create intellectual property when we arrived here 18 years ago, when the risk profile was much higher than it is now, we wouldn't all be here today, and you wouldn’t be listening to this phone call." It's just a fact."

He's not mistaken. Our capitalist system was built to pump oil. But sooner or later, every well will run dry. I can use metaphors, too. While GTA and RDR have become world-beaters, Take-Two also has a number other heavy-hitters in its lineup, including the lucrative 2K Sports games, Civilization and Borderlands, BioShock and Mafia--the last two of which could be seen to be suffering from the decay Zelnick worries about--the danger of being caught out is very real if and when these games start sputtering is very real.

Truthfully, I can't think of anything truly new that Take-Two is cooking up right now, aside from Judas, a new game from Ken Levine and Ghost Story Games. Even that looks more technicallynew, than, ya know, new. Based on what we've seen so far, it certainly does look like another KenShock.

Zelnick's comment was ironic, as it came on the day he announced Take-Two selling Private Division, its publishing label that was created in 2017 to support the creation of new indie-styled video games. Zelnick stated in the same conference call that Take-Two, while "really impressed," by what Private Division produced, "was not big" in the context of its core intellectual property.