Take Two Boss Strauss Zelnick Isn’t Afraid of AI Games: “It’s backward-looking.”
AI is becoming more and more present in our daily lives. There are those who are welcoming to this phenomenon, while others are getting more and more annoyed by the constant reliance on AI.
This is especially true for the arts and other creative fields, as more and more AI art is appearing online, which not something that people want. We’ve reported on the recent controversy involving Sony’s use of AI characters, and the Ghibli-inspired Interstellar AI anime caused an uproar.
And while some are worried about the future of gaming in relation to AI, Take Two boss Strauss Zelnick is not worried at all, as he reveals in the recently published book The Creative Entrepreneur by Carolyn Dailey.
Zelnick’s logic here is quite sound. He believes that because AI only regurgitates already-existing, it cannot create anything truly new and original. It just doesn’t function like that. “This is why I’m not worried about AI creating hits, because it’s built on data that already exists. It’s backward-looking,” he explains. “Big hits are forward-looking and therefore need to be created out of thin air. Being the most creative means not just thinking outside the box; it means there is no box.”
In light of that, he had a very clear message for developers. “Be the most creative: Meaning, hire the best creators and insist they pursue their passions,” he said. “Encourage them to always try something new and to stay away from derivative and copycat works.”
He also added that “in Hollywood it’s common to pitch your product as ‘it’s a combination of Spiderman meets Batman meets Back to the Future’… We don’t do that here; we want something that you’ve never seen before.”
If more people take such a stance, the industry could really surpass the challenges that lie ahead and provide us with some amazing and brilliant titles.
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