BioShock, game prices, GTA, the disappearing NFL deal and more: An interview with Take Two CEO Strauss Zelnick

"Be honest, because we might as well be.”

BioShock. Screenshot: Irrational Games, 2K

In 20 years of covering the video game beat, I’d probably not spoken more than 20 words with Take Two chairman Strauss Zelnick, who’s been running the company behind NBA 2K, Grand Theft Auto, BioShock and Red Dead Redemption for, you guessed it, nearly 20 years.

Last week, though, ahead of a panel I was hosting at the iicon event in Las Vegas, I had about 20 minutes to interview Zelnick.

I could ask one question for each year, I joked, as we settled into our seats on opposite sides of a conference table. Take Two’s longtime head of corporate communications, Alan Lewis, was seated at Zelnick’s side.

I didn’t quite conduct our chat that way, but we wound up going through a lot, including…

• The state of BioShock

• The ramifications of the rising costs of game development

• The fate of Take Two’s recent multi-game deal with the NFL

• Some hints about Take Two’s mobile plans

• Whether Zelnick’s answer to me about Civ VII was a good one

• The do’s and don’t’s of NBA 2K microtransactions

• Take Two’s take on the Switch 2

• Oh, and GTA VI (Spoiler: if Zelnick had spilled the beans on the price of the game or a release date for a PC version or whether there will be a polka radio station, that would have been this article’s headline).

Before all of that, I would learn what it’s like to interview Strauss Zelnick, who is confident, calm and focused on delivering precise answers.

To wit, I thought I’d start our chat with something fun, a bit insidery but maybe safe for him to share. The team at Take Two’s Rockstar label delays their games a lot, I noted. Of course, those delays, however painful, tend to be worth it. So, I was wondering how Zelnick finds out about them. Take the most recent postponement back in November 2025, when Rockstar said that GTA VI would not hit its May 26, 2026 release date (just 20 days from now!) and would instead come out on November 19, 2026. Was that news delivered via a call? An email? How does it work?

“I work super closely with my team,” Zelnick said. “It's a very thin team at Take Two. The entire senior management team is six executives who sit in one hallway and share two assistants. And then, basically, there are two people who head up each of our labels.”

They meet weekly to discuss their business, he said.

So no one emails him about a delay? Nothing like that?

Zelnick craned his neck to look at my left hand. He asked if I was married.

I am, I said.

“Does your partner email you to give you information?” he asked.

Fair enough. I didn’t get the sense Zelnick was going to read me the minutes of the management meeting where the GTA VI delay was discussed.

Slight pivot, maybe I could get some personality insights about one of the most successful gaming execs of the last 20 years, before getting to my big list of questions about specific Take Two games, franchises and policies.

I asked: How do you deal with delay news like that? Go for a run? Meditate?

“I tend to default to being very calm,” he said. “I’m not a person who freaks out easily.” He noted that he has a daughter with special needs due to an illness, and he shared that that situation had gotten him worked up. It was a personal, family emergency.

“But, you know, business is not that,” he said. “I have no trouble distinguishing between, like, a business challenge and an emergency.”

He turned to his left to ask Lewis, his colleague of 17 years, a question.

“Have you ever seen me freak out?”

“Never,” Lewis replied.

“You’ve seen me upset,” Zelnick told Lewis. “Have you seen me raise my voice? Maybe how many times? Be honest, because we might as well be.”