Take-Two Interactive plans to put off 5 % 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 end in $165 million in annual financial savings for Take-Two.
Because the proprietor of Grand Theft Auto and the mother or father firm of Rockstar Video games, 2K, Non-public Division, Zynga and Gearbox, Take-Two is a juggernaut within the online game business. It reported $5.3 billion in income in 2023, a virtually $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 herald billions by itself.
Take-Two instituted a spherical of layoffs in 2023 throughout Private Division — the indie label behind Kerbal Area Program, The Outer Worlds and Rollerdrome — and different in-house studios.
An estimated 8,800 folks within the online game business have misplaced their jobs in 2024 to this point, and a complete of 10,500 business workers have been laid off in 2023. These are, depressingly, record-breaking figures. Sony laid off about 900 folks at PlayStation in February; Microsoft fired about 1,900 staff throughout its gaming division in January; Riot Video games let go greater than 500 folks that very same month — and these are simply a few of the most up-to-date AAA layoffs. Take-Two is now on the head of this checklist.
Take-Two executives have been hinting at a “significant cost reduction program” coming this 12 months, however earlier than at present, they deflected questions on mass layoffs. In March, CEO Strauss Zelnick mentioned on an investor name, “The hardest thing to do is to lay off colleagues and we have no current plans.”
