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TL;DR
Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said AI companies should protect their own intellectual property and that of others, responding to a question about Anthropic’s restriction on recreating specific games in Claude Code. He described AI-assisted game cloning as a creative concern rather than a financial threat to Take-Two. His remarks did not identify a specific product, incident or company practice, and neither Anthropic nor OpenAI had publicly responded by November 14.
Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick said AI companies should protect other people’s intellectual property as well as their own, after an IGN interviewer asked about tools that could help users recreate video games. Zelnick called the issue a creative concern, not a financial threat to Take-Two, and did not identify a particular AI product or game-cloning incident.
In an interview published by IGN on November 9, 2026, interviewer Wesley Yin-Poole asked Zelnick about Anthropic’s new guidance for its Claude Code coding agent and whether OpenAI should adopt a similar restriction. Zelnick replied: “I think all companies should be protecting intellectual property, their own and everyone else’s.” He added that it seemed “ironic” for companies in the intellectual-property business to “stomp on someone else’s IP and hope that yours is protected.”
The exchange followed a question about reports of hackers using AI to clone games and potentially bypass console protections, a concern explored in AI game clones. On that subject, Zelnick said he did not view the issue as a financial threat to Take-Two, but did see it as a creative matter. He said the company wants developers and consumers to experience games as Rockstar envisions them and that Take-Two protects its intellectual property.
Anthropic’s Claude Code instruction, in place since version 2.1.317, published November 2, tells the model not to create a recreation of a specific existing game using its name, characters, art, music, levels or overall look—even if the result is renamed or described as original. The instruction is grounded in Anthropic’s usage policy, which prohibits infringing others’ intellectual property. OpenAI’s usage policies also prohibit attempts to infringe intellectual-property rights, but the source report found no comparable game-specific instruction in the public code for its Codex CLI agent.
AI coding agents and existing games · as of Nov 14, 2026
Prompt in, game out: where the line runs
Three example requests (illustrative, not real cases) and what each vendor’s published rules say about them.
- Example request
“An original racing game with my own art”own idea, own assets
Claude Code (Anthropic)AllowedRule text: build original games and games from the user’s own designs and assets
Codex / policies (OpenAI)No objectionNothing in the published usage policies against it
- Example request
“A heist game with mechanics like [a named hit]”a game named as a reference
Claude Code (Anthropic)Allowed since v2.1.317Builds an original game in that genre, per Anthropic
Codex / policies (OpenAI)No game rule foundNo game-specific instruction in the Codex CLI code
- Example request
“Rebuild [a specific game], just rename it”a copy under a new name
Claude Code (Anthropic)Not allowedCovers its name, characters, art, music, levels or look; offers to build something similar
Codex / policies (OpenAI)General IP banUsage policies bar attempts to infringe IP; no game-specific rule found
Outside the tools: Take-Two says it relies on its own “technical defenses” and “legal activities”. Copyright and trademark law apply whichever tool writes the code.
The requests are our own illustrations. The rows summarize published rules, not tests of how the tools behave. ChatGPT’s and Codex Web’s server-side instructions are not public.
Sources: Claude Code program text, versions 2.1.317 to 2.1.325, and Anthropic’s statement of Nov 4, 2026 (via Tom’s Hardware); OpenAI usage policies, version effective Nov 20, 2026 (Internet Archive copy of Oct 28, 2026); Codex CLI repository on GitHub, checked Nov 14, 2026; Take-Two fiscal Q2 2027 earnings call, Nov 9, 2026.
Graphic: Powered by Thorsten Meyer AI
AI Rules Meet Game Ownership
The remarks addressed how rules against intellectual-property infringement apply when users ask coding systems to reproduce recognizable games. A model’s ability to generate code or assets does not, by itself, establish that a particular output infringes copyright. The details of a request and the resulting work matter, and Zelnick’s comments did not resolve that legal question.
Zelnick distinguished between financial risk and creative concerns. He said he did not see cloning as a financial threat to Take-Two, while saying it could affect the intended creative experience. On the company’s earnings call, he separately said piracy could become more of a challenge and that Take-Two was strengthening its technical defenses and legal activities. He did not report a confirmed loss or disclose a case involving an AI-generated clone.
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What Zelnick Was Asked
The interview took place by phone and was published the evening Take-Two reported results for the quarter ended September 30, 2026. Its questions covered AI, piracy and the prospect of an unofficial PC version of Grand Theft Auto VI. A later question specifically asked about Anthropic’s restriction and whether other AI companies should take similar steps.
That framing matters when interpreting subsequent headlines. The names Anthropic and OpenAI came from the interviewer; Zelnick responded with a general principle and a criticism he framed as irony. He did not specify what conduct he meant by “stomp on someone else’s IP,” say that either company had enabled a particular clone, or identify a Take-Two title recreated with Claude or ChatGPT.
The terminology also differs across the exchange. The interviewer described Anthropic’s measure as blocking reverse engineering, while the published Claude Code instruction addresses recreating a specific existing game. It does not explicitly mention reverse engineering or decompilation. On the earnings call, Zelnick discussed AI-assisted reverse engineering and decompilation separately, saying technical limitations had historically made piracy difficult before adding that it could become more challenging.
“I think all companies should be protecting intellectual property, their own and everyone else’s.”
— Strauss Zelnick, Take-Two chairman and CEO, in an IGN interview published November 9, 2026
Limits of the Public Record
The interview does not establish that Anthropic or OpenAI has permitted or produced a clone of a Take-Two game. It also leaves unclear what conduct Zelnick meant by his reference to “stomp on” others’ intellectual property: user-generated outputs, the training or development of AI models, or another practice. No specific infringement claim, lawsuit or affected game was named in the cited remarks.
As of 21:30 UTC on November 14, the source report had found no public response from Anthropic or OpenAI to Zelnick’s comments. The available material also does not detail how Anthropic’s instruction is applied in practice, how often users encounter it, or whether OpenAI plans game-specific guidance. These points remain unconfirmed.
Company Responses and Protections
Any public responses from Anthropic or OpenAI, or changes to their rules for game-recreation requests, would provide further information about their policies. Take-Two said it was strengthening technical defenses and legal activity against piracy, but did not describe specific measures or give a timetable in the remarks cited here.
Assessing specific cases would require details about what a user asked an AI system to make, what the system produced, how that output relates to an existing game, and how the relevant policy or law applies. The cited remarks do not establish that a particular game was cloned or that a dispute has begun.
Key Questions
What did Strauss Zelnick say about AI game cloning?
He said protecting intellectual property should apply to AI companies’ own work and to others’ work. He described game cloning as a creative concern rather than a financial threat to Take-Two.
Did Zelnick accuse Anthropic or OpenAI of cloning a Take-Two game?
No specific accusation or game was identified in the interview. Zelnick responded to a question naming the companies and made a general criticism about protecting intellectual property.
What restriction did Anthropic add to Claude Code?
Its instruction tells Claude Code not to recreate a specific existing game using elements such as its characters, art, music, levels or overall look, even if the recreation is renamed or called original. The instruction was included in version 2.1.317, published November 2, 2026.
Does OpenAI have the same game-specific rule?
OpenAI’s usage policies prohibit attempts to infringe others’ intellectual-property rights. The source report found no equivalent game-specific instruction in the public code for its Codex CLI agent; that finding does not establish how every OpenAI product handles such requests.
Have Anthropic or OpenAI responded to Zelnick’s remarks?
The source report found no public response from either company as of 21:30 UTC on November 14, 2026. Whether they will comment or change their guidance remains unknown.
Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com
