How To Think About AI Game Clones And Intellectual Property

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Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick said AI companies should protect other people’s intellectual property, as well as their own, in a November 9 interview with IGN about AI-assisted game cloning. He did not name a specific cloned game or accuse Anthropic or OpenAI of a particular infringement. The exchange addressed how AI coding tools handle requests to reproduce existing games.

IGN’s Wesley Yin-Poole asked Zelnick whether he welcomed a new restriction in Anthropic’s Claude Code and whether OpenAI should take a similar step. 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 question named Anthropic and OpenAI; Zelnick did not identify what specific conduct he meant by “stomp on.”

Earlier in the interview, Zelnick said he did not view AI-enabled piracy as a financial threat to Take-Two’s business, but called it a creative concern. On the company’s earnings call that day, he said piracy would become “more of a challenge” and said Take-Two was “enhancing our technical defenses and enhancing our legal activities appropriately.” Those comments address the company’s general response, not a disclosed case involving a specific AI tool or game.

Anthropic’s Claude Code instruction, included since version 2.1.317, published November 2, tells the model not to recreate a specific existing game using its name, characters, art, music, levels or look, even if the request renames it or calls it original. Anthropic grounds the instruction in its usage policy against infringing third-party intellectual property. OpenAI’s usage policies also prohibit attempts to infringe others’ IP. The source review found no game-specific instruction in the open-source code for OpenAI’s Codex CLI; that finding does not establish how every OpenAI product handles such requests.

AI Tools Face Game-Recreation Questions

The exchange concerns how game makers and AI developers address requests to reproduce recognizable games. Coding agents can help users produce software, while reproducing a game may raise copyright and other IP concerns. A restriction against recreating a named game specifies one limit for a tool, while broader policies against infringement do not describe how every prompt or output will be handled.

Zelnick said he did not view the issue as a direct business threat, while also saying piracy may become harder to manage. His remarks do not establish that AI tools have caused measurable losses to Take-Two or determine whether a particular AI-generated game would infringe a protected work. Any effect on developers, rights holders and users will depend on the facts of each case and how tools apply their rules.

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What the Interview Actually Covered

The interview took place by phone and was published the evening Take-Two reported results for the quarter ended September 30, 2026. IGN first asked about hackers using AI to clone games and whether an unofficial PC version of Grand Theft Auto VI would pose a threat. Zelnick answered that Take-Two wanted to deliver the experience Rockstar intended and said the company protected its IP vigilantly.

A later question linked that subject to Anthropic’s new Claude Code rule and asked whether OpenAI should do the same. Zelnick said it seemed ironic for companies in the intellectual-property business to infringe someone else’s rights while expecting their own rights to be protected. He did not name a product, case or alleged act. On the earnings call, he also described technical and legal defenses against piracy and said that replicating the intended game experience had historically faced technical barriers.

The Claude Code rule addresses recreating a specific game; it does not, in the wording reported by the source, explicitly refer to reverse engineering or decompilation. Those terms appeared in the interviewer’s framing and in an analyst’s question on the earnings call. The rule’s stated scope is therefore distinct from those activities.

“I think all companies should be protecting intellectual property, their own and everyone else’s.”

— Strauss Zelnick, Take-Two Interactive CEO, in an IGN interview published November 9, 2026

Specific Allegations Remain Unstated

Zelnick did not say whether his reference to “stomp on someone else’s IP” concerned AI-generated user content, the data or methods used to develop models, or another issue. The interview did not identify a Take-Two title cloned with Claude or ChatGPT, and the source material reports no specific infringement case involving either company. Anthropic and OpenAI had not publicly responded to Zelnick’s remarks as of 21:30 UTC on November 14, according to the source.

It is also unclear how consistently the companies’ policies are applied in practice, what outputs might be blocked, and how any disputed game recreation would be judged under applicable law. The published wording of a policy is not evidence that every user request is prevented or that a particular output is lawful or unlawful. No public enforcement data or case-specific legal determination was provided in the source material.

Watch for Policy and Company Responses

The immediate open question is whether Anthropic or OpenAI will respond publicly to Zelnick’s comments or clarify how their policies apply to game-recreation requests. Further updates to Claude Code or OpenAI’s published policies could also show whether either company adopts more specific language about existing games, reverse engineering or decompilation.

Take-Two has said it is strengthening technical defenses and legal activity, but it has not announced a specific enforcement action tied to an AI-generated clone in the material available here. Any later claim about a particular game or tool will need to be assessed against the actual prompt, output, company policy and legal record. For now, the confirmed development is a public statement of principle alongside existing policy language, not a disclosed dispute between Take-Two and either AI company.

Key Questions

What did Strauss Zelnick say about AI companies and game IP?

He said companies should protect their own intellectual property and everyone else’s. He also called it ironic for a company in the IP business to infringe someone else’s rights while expecting its own rights to be protected.

Did Zelnick accuse Anthropic or OpenAI of cloning a Take-Two game?

No specific accusation appears in the reported interview. Zelnick did not name a cloned game, product or case, and did not say that Claude or ChatGPT had been used to reproduce a Take-Two title.

What does Anthropic’s Claude Code rule prohibit?

The reported instruction tells Claude Code not to recreate a specific existing game using elements such as its name, characters, art, music, levels or look, including when a request renames it or calls it original. It has been included since version 2.1.317, published November 2, 2026.

Does OpenAI have a game-specific rule?

OpenAI’s usage policies bar attempts to infringe other people’s intellectual property. The source review found no game-specific instruction in the open-source Codex CLI code, but that finding does not describe every OpenAI product or establish how all requests are handled.

Has Take-Two reported financial losses from AI game clones?

The source material does not report such losses. Zelnick said he did not view AI-assisted piracy as a financial threat to Take-Two’s business, while describing it as a creative concern and saying piracy could become more challenging.

Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com