GTA 6 Publisher Take-Two Interactive Laying Off Staff, Canceling Games

April 17, 2024

Highlights

Take-Two Interactive is cutting jobs and canceling projects to save $165 million annually amidst slowing revenue growth in gaming.
The company, behind Grand Theft Auto 6 and other popular franchises, is following the trend of layoffs in the gaming industry.
Layoffs are happening across the industry as companies adjust to a supposed influx of pandemic-hired employees and decreased sales expectations.

Take-Two Interactive, the publisher behind the Grand Theft Auto series, including the upcoming GTA 6, is enacting a cut to its workforce and canceling projects. This is just the latest in the slew of layoffs and restructurings in the gaming industry over the last couple years.

Take-Two Interactive owns a number of massive game series, including the 2K sports games, Red Dead Redemption, GTA, BioShock, and as of a recent move, Borderlands. With hugely popular games and franchises like these in its portfolio, fans might think that the company is secure and wouldn’t need to lay off employees. However, it seems that’s not the case.

take-two-ceo-comments-on-impact-of-grand-theft-auto-6-trailer-leak

The CEO of Take-Two Interactive comments on how the leak of the Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer one day before its release has affected the company.

As reported by Reuters, Take-Two Interactive has announced that the company is cutting about 600 employees or 5% of its workforce. The company is also selling off some of its office space, and is canceling the release of multiple projects that were in development. Take-Two believes this move will save the company $165 million annually in an effort to counter slowing revenue growth in PC and console gaming. Unfortunately, the company has not revealed what games have been axed.

This move may come as a surprise to some. Take-Two Interactive is in the process of closing a deal to buy Gearbox Entertainment for $460 million. The publisher is also approaching the release of the hotly-awaited Grand Theft Auto 6, which is extremely likely to see massive sales and profits for the company, even before any potential microtransactions come into the picture. However, the announcement of Gearbox Entertainment’s acquisition was immediately followed by layoffs for the developer, perhaps hinting at the direction the publisher would be moving in.

Why is Take-Two Interactive Cutting Jobs?

Take-Two Interactive is following the current trend in the gaming industry of laying off workers in an effort to reduce spending and increase profits. One of the alleged reasons for this kind of mass layoff is that game companies hired more workers during the pandemic due to an uptick in gaming from people being cooped up at home. However, now that most employees have returned to the office and may have less time to game, there’s a supposed excess of game industry employees. Combined with lowered sale expectations, and many developers and game publishers are reducing the size of their workforce to compensate.

Take-Two Interactive is far from alone in this move, as massive game companies like Sony, Microsoft, and as well as a number of individual developers have made major cuts to their teams. However, not everyone is in agreement with the alleged reason behind it. The director of Baldur’s Gate 3 at Larian Studios has claimed that these workforce cuts are primarily due to greed in the gaming industry. No matter the cause, it’s an unfortunate thing for the developers who work so hard to bring games to life.