Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick instructed IGN at present that the corporate has not closed Kerbal Area Program 2 developer Intercept Video games or OlliOlli maker Roll7 regardless of a current report that mentioned the studios had been shut down.
“We did not shutter these studios, to be clear,” Zelnick instructed the location. “And we’re all the time our launch schedule throughout all of our studios to make it possible for it is smart. So we’re being very considered as a result of we’re in the course of a value discount program that we have already concluded and at the moment are absolutely rolling out. We have introduced that we’re saving $165 million in present and future prices, however we have not shuttered something.”
It is not clear from his remark whether or not Zelnick genuinely signifies that Intercept and Roll7 will proceed to function as they’ve, or if he is making a technical distinction—as in, they have not closed but (learn on for proof associated to this notion), or the copper’s been stripped from the buildings however the studios nonetheless technically exist as enterprise entities, or they’re by some means being rolled into their mother or father firm, Take-Two’s Personal Division publishing label.
The primary supply of the closure information was Bloomberg, which reported two weeks in the past that each studios have been being shut down as a part of Take-Two’s introduced value discount plan. There was additionally a WARN discover (a government-mandated heads up earlier than a mass layoff) which acknowledged that Take-Two is slicing 60 jobs in Seattle, the place Intercept Video games relies, as a consequence of a “closure.”
Take-Two would not touch upon the reported closures after we first heard about them, besides to reiterate its value discount plans and say that the Personal Division label would proceed to replace Kerbal Area Program 2. Assigning that accountability to Personal Division as a complete appears an odd factor to do if Intercept have been nonetheless round, though after the information of the cuts, the official X account for Kerbal Area Program 2 briefly lit as much as say, “We’re nonetheless onerous at work on KSP2. We’ll speak extra after we can.”
Jason Schreier, the Bloomberg reporter who broke the alleged closures, identified on X at present that Take-Two closed BioShock 2 developer 2K Marin in 2013 with out ever acknowledging it, suggesting that Intercept and Roll7 could also be getting the identical therapy.
Schreier additionally shared a memo which he says was delivered to Roll7 staff earlier this month, and which states that Take-Two is “proposing to close down” the studio—ie, that it will likely be closed, however hasn’t been but, which might assist the ‘effectively, technically talking…’ studying of Zelnick’s feedback.
Hey everybody, let’s play a sport known as What’s The Reality?On the left, feedback from Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick to IGN at present.On the precise, a part of a be aware despatched to Roll7 staff that was obtained by Bloomberg earlier this month, shared now with the supply’s permission. pic.twitter.com/raRV9Q4u4GMay 16, 2024
In a few follow-up solutions to IGN, a Take-Two PR rep and Zelnick indicated that they’d not be elaborating on the fates of the studios at present.
“We simply have a tendency to go away these bulletins to the label, we do not have a tendency to speak about them, so we’re not attempting to be cute or tough at present,” Zelnick mentioned. “It is simply that we do not are likely to carry these discussions into these conferences.”
