GTA 6 publishers Take-Two cancel games and lay off hundreds to "rationalize" their pipeline

rockpapershotgun.com:

GTA 6 publishers Take-Two Interactive have announced that they're "rationalizing" their "pipeline" and positioning/restructuring/streamlining for growth by, you guessed it, laying off a load of people and cancelling a bunch of games. As detailed in a Security Exchange Commission filing, Take-Two are doing away with five per cent of the approximately 11,000 people who work for them, and have cancelled several in-development projects worth tens of millions of dollars.

"The Company estimates that it will incur approximately $160 million to $200 million in total charges in connection with the Plan," Take-Two wrote in the filing, as passed on by Kotaku. "The Company expects $40 million to $60 million of the total charges to result in future cash expenditures. The total charge consists of approximately $120 million to $140 million related to title cancellations, approximately $25 million to $35 million associated with employee severance and employee-related costs, and approximately $15 million to $25 million related to office space reductions."

As Kotaku note, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick told IGN less than a month ago that they had "no current plans" to lay off any employees. The publishers recently bought Borderlands developers Gearbox from Embracer and appear to be in the pink. They reported net bookings of $1.2 billion for the last quarter, 20 percent up from a year ago, with Zelnick personally garnering $40 million in total compensation as CEO last year.

Last month Take-Two acquired Borderlands developers Gearbox from Embracer, who themselves recently announced the conclusion of their own "restructuring" program - I'm not sure I'd bet against further layoffs and closures, there.

GTA 6 aside, Take-Two's forthcoming releases include - or have included - a new Borderlands, a new BioShock, and Judas from Ken Levine's studio Ghost Story Games, which features diabolical dentistry and a fast-travelling robot dog. It's not clear whether any of these projects are affected by