GTA 6 maker eyes AI to cut rising game costs

The creators of Grand Theft Auto VI are looking to artificial intelligence as a way to reduce the soaring costs of developing modern video games.

Take-Two Interactive, the parent company behind the highly anticipated title, said the enormous investments required for blockbuster games only make sense for the industry’s biggest franchises, News.Az reports, citing Daily Star.

GTA 6 is widely expected to become the most expensive entertainment product ever created, with estimated development and marketing costs projected to range between $1 billion and $1.5 billion ahead of its planned 2026 release.

The company said such massive spending is increasingly difficult to sustain, prompting it to explore whether AI could help lower production costs for games that are smaller in scale than the hugely successful Grand Theft Auto franchise.

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said the company cannot continue dealing with exponential — or even steady linear — increases in production expenses.

“So everyone puts pressure on everyone, ourselves included,” Zelnick said.

“At the same time, we want to create bigger hits, and we are prepared to take the appropriate risks to achieve that.”

While Grand Theft Auto remains Take-Two’s largest franchise, the publisher also owns major gaming brands including BioShock and Borderlands.

Zelnick said there is a limit to how much those franchises can continue to grow if development costs remain high.

“It really means that we’re going to have to be smarter about how we do things or certain titles can’t get made,” he told Bloomberg.

He added that the company’s strategy is not to reduce the quality, length, or depth of games for consumers.

“Certainly, our bet is not going to be to give consumers less. Our bet is not going to be make games lighter, shorter, worse,” he said.

Instead, Zelnick expressed hope that emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence could improve efficiency across game development.

He also described GTA 6 as an “expensive” project, although Take-Two has not publicly disclosed the game’s actual budget.

According to Zelnick, his long-term ambition is to provide game developers with “unlimited” financial and creative resources by making greater use of technologies like AI.

News.Az 

By Nijat Babayev