A week after Rockstar approved mods from Grand Theft Auto Online's roleplaying community, Take-Two has removed a mod for Grand Theft Auto V that featured AI-generated dialogue.
02.08.2023 - 11:01 / pcgamesinsider.biz
Publishing giant Take-Two has doubled the compensation of two of its top executives.
As spotted by Axios, the company wrote in its annual proxy filing that CEO Strauss Zelnick (pictured) and president Karl Slatoff would see a combined compensation of $72.3 million. That's split across cash and stock. The two actually contract their services to Take-Two via Zelnick Media Capital and have done for some time now. Per this agreement, Zelnick receives 60 per cent of the compensation, while Slatoff receives the remaining 40 per cent.
During the 2022 fiscal year, the duo received $30,040,000 in compensation.
For this new compensation, $43.8 million is tied to company performance, while almost 25 per cent is tied to recurrent consumer spending – i.e. microtransactions and season passes.
"Fiscal 2023 was a milestone year in Take-Two’s 30-year history," Take-Two's compensation committee wrote.
"Our combination with Zynga marked a transformative evolution of our Company, as we significantly diversified our business operations and established a leadership position in mobile, the fastest growing segment of the interactive entertainment industry. The combination with Zynga has been highly accretive to our business and we see substantial runway ahead of us as we capitalise on new revenue-driven opportunities while also realising our anticipated cost synergies. Looking ahead, we are excited about Take-Two’s strategic position within our industry and believe that we can continue to scale our business to grow margins and ultimately deliver long-term value for our shareholders."
A week after Rockstar approved mods from Grand Theft Auto Online's roleplaying community, Take-Two has removed a mod for Grand Theft Auto V that featured AI-generated dialogue.
Earlier this month, we covered a new GTA V mod crafted with Inworld AI's Character Engine by modder Bloc. That mod added a whole new storyline to Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto V, though its defining feature was the support for completely unscripted conversation with non-player characters (NPCs). It wasn't Bloc's first attempt at injecting generative AI technology in a game, as he previously did it with Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
Take-Two has chalked up another body in the GTA modding scene, and barely a week after Rockstar turned heads by buying up the FiveM mod makers. This time the victim was the creator of Sentient Streets, the AI mod that allowed you to chat with, cajole and extort the NPCs of Los Santos that we covered last week. Rockstar's parent company was none too happy with it, apparently, so all trace of it has now been blasted from the internet.
A popular mod for GTA 5 has been removed from Nexus Mods due to a DMCA takedown from Take-Two Interactive, according to its creator.
The creator of an eye-catching Grand Theft Auto 5 mod that promised a living, AI-powered story mode has admitted defeat after Take-Two hauled the mod offline.
The creator of a GTA AI mod has had their mod shutdown entirely by Take-Two.
There’s a lot of contention at the moment regarding the re-release of Red Dead Redemption. Some fans are not pleased about Rockstar charging $50 for a PS4 port of a 13-year-old game, but Take-Two’s CEO doesn’t appear to agree with them.
Grand Theft Auto V is still performing above expectations and drove results at Rockstar Games parent company Take-Two, and all signs point to a sequel close on the horizon.
Take-Two Interactive recently had an earnings call, allowing the company to take on some questions from investors. One of which was all about the topic of films and television series. There’s been some uptick regarding successful adaptations lately from video games being the source material. But that doesn’t mean there will be companies looking to take a risk in this entertainment medium. According to the CEO of Take-Two Interactive, Strauss Zelnick, it’s a relatively small economic opportunity.
Take-Two's CEO gets a bigger payday if the company makes more money from microtransactions.
There are quite a few of us waiting on Rockstar Games to finally unveil the next major installment to the Grand Theft Auto franchise. This IP has blown up with each release, and since Grand Theft Auto V, we’ve been forced to wait. It’s not too surprising that there is a relatively larger gap between releases. Grand Theft Auto V was already a massive hit, and it blew up even more when Rockstar Games brought out Grand Theft Auto Online. Developers, along with its parent company, Take-Two Interactive, were getting a real money-maker game that continued to sell years after its release.
Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has some surprisingly pro-consumer things to say about backwards compatibility on Nintendo’s next console.