„My job is not to get in their way“ – The boss of Take-Two explains why he doesn’t play GTA 6

While countless players eagerly await the release of GTA 6, CEO Strauss Zelnick has not yet played the game. In an interview, he explains why that is actually a good thing.

Many players are already looking forward to the release of GTA 6 on May 26, 2026, while the head of GTA 6 and CEO of the publisher Take-Two, Strauss Zelnick, hasn’t even touched the game yet. In an interview with the American news channel CNBC, he was asked whether he had played GTA 6 yet and what he thought of it.

His response: “I am not a gamer, at least not particularly – I do not play video games and I am not the ultimate consumer.” And that is a good thing, he continues, because his job is primarily not to get in the way.

Here you can see the second trailer for GTA 6:

“I think being the ultimate consumer in the industry would probably be a mistake”

What does Strauss Zelnick say about his role in GTA 6? In the interview, Zelnick explains that being a gamer as the CEO of a games publisher is not his role. He does play and has an opinion that he shares openly with the developers; however, that is not his primary task.

He goes even further and says it is not in the company’s interest if he were a gamer. Instead, his strengths lie elsewhere:

My job is to attract, retain, and motivate the best talent in the company and then not to get in their way. I think it is probably a mistake to be the ultimate consumer in the entertainment business as a CEO. I was not the chief consumer in the film business, in the television business, or in the music business, although I certainly could read a script and definitely love music… but that is not my role.

Strauss Zelnick in an interview with CNBC

The aim is to create the “best that the entertainment industry has ever seen” together with Rockstar Games.

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In a financial report from Take-Two, Zelnick recently also talked about the postponement of GTA 6 to the year 2026. In his opinion, that is a worthwhile investment. How much GTA 6 potentially cost and what Zelnick continues to say about the postponement can be read here: Head of GTA 6 emphasizes that the postponement was a “worthwhile investment,” development is said to have started in 2020