GTA 6: Lainie Goldstein, the Take-Two CFO behind the forecasts

Lainie Goldstein has been chief financial officer of Take-Two Interactive, the publisher that owns Rockstar Games, since 2007. On every quarterly earnings call she gives the net bookings outlook, the operating revenue figure Take-Two guides on, for the fiscal year that contains November 19, 2026, when Grand Theft Auto VI comes out on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Her number is $8 to $8.2 billion.

She joined Take-Two in 2003 as senior vice president of finance. Before that she held several roles at Nautica Enterprises, the last as vice president of finance and business development, and she started out in the audit and reorganization groups at Grant Thornton. She holds an accounting degree from American University in Washington and sits on the board of Phreesia. She had been running the books for six years when Karl Slatoff became president in May 2013.

Her outlook, call by call

Date	Earnings call	What she announced
November 6, 2025	Fiscal 2026 Q2, the day of the second delay	Fiscal 2026 outlook raised to $6.4 to $6.5 billion
February 3, 2026	Fiscal 2026 Q3	Raised again, to $6.65 to $6.7 billion, 18% growth
May 21, 2026	Fiscal 2026 Q4	$6.72 billion delivered, $8 to $8.2 billion guided for fiscal 2027
August 7, 2026	Fiscal 2027 Q1	$8 to $8.2 billion reiterated, $1.62 to $1.67 billion for July to September

Fiscal 2026 landed above every range she gave. The next step up is $1.28 to $1.48 billion, or 19% to 22%, and on May 21, 2026 she put it down “primarily” to the “launch of Grand Theft Auto 6 on November 19th.” She expects recurrent consumer spending (virtual currency, add-on content) to stay flat and make up 65% of the year’s net bookings. It was 84% from April to June 2026, with the game still unreleased.

What she leaves to Rockstar

Her answers stop at the group’s numbers. On May 21, 2026, Roth Capital Partners analyst Eric Handler asked about operating expenses. About half goes to selling and marketing for the whole company, she said, then pointed back to the studio: “Rockstar will provide more details on the GTA series when they’re ready to talk about that.”

On November 6, 2025, the day of the delay to November 19, 2026, her prepared remarks never named the game: the new date came from Strauss Zelnick and Karl Slatoff. On February 3, 2026, a Citi analyst asked about earnings the following year, and she kept to one line: “our release schedule is going to drive sequential growth next year.”

Her next outlook lands on Monday, November 9, 2026 after the market close, ten days before launch, with results for July to September. She had guided $1.62 to $1.67 billion in net bookings for that quarter, against $1.96 billion a year earlier. At the same event in 2025, Take-Two stock fell 8.1% the next day.