Take-Two confirm layoffs affecting Private Division, despite "exponential growth in recent years"
The cuts are primarily impacting corporate and publishing efforts
Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two have confirmed layoffs at the company, primarily affecting their corporate and publishing efforts. The news originally spilled yesterday via a Tweet from Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, who claimed the cuts would impact Private Division - the publishing label behind The Outer Worlds and Kerbal Space Program 2 - and other unnamed divisions. Take-Two later confirmed the news in a statement to PC Gamer, saying the layoffs would affect “corporate operations and label publishing.” Take-Two haven’t clarified the number of employees that have been laid off, but the cuts to development teams would be “minimal.”
Take-Two's statement also confirmed that "similar reductions" are planned outside of the US, and that the publisher have "begun procedures in compliance with local law." The company says the reductions are "necessary steps to position the company for another extended period of success," despite their "exponential growth in recent years."
Layoffs at the company were first hinted at in Take-Two’s third quarter fiscal report last year, where the publisher said they were “implementing a cost reduction program expected to yield over $50 million of annual savings.” This came after the publisher missed their own revenue forecasts and recorded net losses over the last three quarters.
After the latest fiscal report, gamesindustry.biz asked Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick about the possibility of layoffs. Zelnick stated that the publisher isn’t expecting a “broad-based reduction in force,” and that they were “going department by department and trying to drive efficiency.” Earlier in the interview Zelnich said, “when the results are poor, I take personal responsibility for them,” which equates to a slew of layoffs in big business terms.
The last few months have seen a barrel of layoffs in the games and tech industries. Microsoft recently laid off 10,000 employees which impacted some of their dev teams, most notably affecting Halo studio 343i and a large portion of their campaign team. Riot Games also laid off 46 staff members, in what is now seen as a “normal course of our business.” And, just last week, EA let go of over 200 Apex Legends testers.