Take-Two Interactive has announced plans to let go of roughly 5% of its work force, or around 600 employees, as part of its previously-announced cost-reduction plan. As part of this move, it’ll also scrap a number of in-development projects and reduce office space. The company says it expects to see more than $165 million USD in annual cost saving as a result.
In the filing, Take-Two says its plans to streamline organisational structure will result in a reduction in future hiring needs and allow it to continue investing for growth, and that it expects its plans to largely be complete by December 31st, 2024.
It’s another gut-wrenching mass exit in a now-years-long span of layoffs in the games industry, and one made especially bitter by Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick’s pretty-recent assurance that layoffs weren’t part of the initial cost reduction plan. Zelnick told IGN earlier this year, “I would just note that our biggest line item of expense is actually marketing. We do think we can optimise that. We also have third-party expenses, software, other vendors, supply services. And we always find opportunity there. The hardest thing to do is to lay off colleagues, and we have no current plans.”
Take-Two, the company behind the Grand Theft Auto video games, plans to fire 5% its workforce and drop several projects to cut costs https://t.co/nyXMvOV4Lt
— Bloomberg (@business) April 16, 2024
The company also just acquired Borderlands developer Gearbox Entertainment from its previous owner and frequent layoff-headline-maker, Embracer Group, to the tune of $460 million USD.
Almost 10,000 games industry employees have lost their jobs in layoffs in just this first four months of the year alone, including from companies like EA, Sony, Microsoft, Twitch, Discord, Ubisoft, SEGA and Riot Games, and thousands more were let go in 2023.
