Take-Two CEO says a long-term strike by video game actors “wouldn’t be good for anyone”

Video game voice actors continue to strike in an effort to get game companies to agree on AI protections for all voice actors. But while CEOs of major publishers like EA and Take-Two don't believe the strike will have a short-term impact on business, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick acknowledges that “a long-term strike wouldn't be good for anyone.”

Speaking to IGN ahead of the company's Q1 earnings release today, Zelnick responded to a question about whether the strike would affect the company's business in general. Like EA CEO Andrew Wilson, he doesn't expect any immediate impact on business. That's to be expected, since games produced before August 25, 2023 aren't technically officially strike work. While actors can still choose to express their solidarity by refusing to work on them, it's likely that most of Take-Two's upcoming games are already largely actor-directed anyway. GTA VI, for example, isn't expected to be affected.

However, if the strike continues for a longer period of time and potentially affects projects that have been signed since last year or that do not yet have acting roles cast, Zelnick said that would not be a good thing.

“We place a lot of value on our relationships with talent. In the past, we have worked very successfully with all associations, including SAG-AFTRA. We will continue to work hard to find a solution. We have already found common ground on 24 out of 25 proposals, so I am confident that we can find a way to come to an agreement and we certainly hope that we can do that. However, we do not expect the strike to have any short-term impact on our business. A longer-term strike would obviously not be good for anyone.”

As Zelnick notes, SAG-AFTRA and game companies have agreed on 24 of 25 proposals. The remaining proposal concerns the use of artificial intelligence to create digital replicas of actors for use in games. Union members are demanding that companies disclose the use of generative AI to create such models to actors and obtain their consent and compensation for such use beforehand.

SAG-AFTRA claims that, among other disagreements, companies are trying to exclude certain types of actors from these agreements, while the union wants these agreements to cover everyone: facial, motion, and voice actors. We've written elsewhere about what this strike and its implications could mean for gamers.

Take-Two reported total net revenue of $1.22 billion for the quarter, within its guidance, and expects second quarter net revenue to be between $1.4 billion and $1.47 billion. Full-year guidance remains unchanged, expecting net revenue to be between $5.55 billion and $5.65 billion. The company also reported that GTA V sales exceeded 200 million and Red Dead Redemption 2 sold over 65 million copies today. Expectations for GTA 6 to be released in fall 2025 remain unchanged.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter at IGN. Have a story tip? Send it to [email protected].