Take-Two Interactive plans to put off 5 p.c of its workforce, or about 600 workers, by the top of the 12 months, as reported in an SEC submitting Tuesday. The studio can be canceling a number of in-development initiatives. These strikes are anticipated to value $160 million to $200 million to implement, and may lead to $165 million in annual financial savings for Take-Two.
Because the proprietor of Grand Theft Auto and the father or mother firm of Rockstar Video games, 2K, Personal Division, Zynga and Gearbox, Take-Two is a juggernaut within the online game trade. It reported $5.3 billion in income in 2023, an almost $2 billion enhance over the earlier 12 months. Only a few weeks in the past, Take-Two agreed to buy Gearbox, the studio answerable for Borderlands, for $460 million. The corporate is getting ready to launch Grand Theft Auto VI in 2025, a transfer that ought to usher in billions by itself.
Take-Two instituted a spherical of layoffs in 2023 throughout Personal Division — the indie label behind Kerbal Area Program, The Outer Worlds and Rollerdrome — and different in-house studios.
An estimated 8,800 individuals within the online game trade have misplaced their jobs in 2024 to this point, and a complete of 10,500 trade workers have been laid off in 2023. These are, depressingly, document–breaking figures. Sony laid off about 900 individuals at PlayStation in February; Microsoft fired about 1,900 staff throughout its gaming division in January; Riot Video games let go greater than 500 individuals that very same month — and these are simply a number of the most up-to-date AAA layoffs. Take-Two is now on the head of this record.
Take-Two executives have been hinting at a “vital value discount program” coming this 12 months, however earlier than at present, they deflected questions on mass layoffs. In March, CEO Strauss Zelnick stated on an investor name, “The toughest factor to do is to put off colleagues and now we have no present plans.”