Take-Two layoffs hit 5% of staff, games cancelled
thesixthaxis.comTake-Two Interactive has announced layoffs that will affect 5% of its workforce or around 600 employees, with games also being cancelled in a yet another sweeping set of redundancies to hit the industry.
The layoffs are an effort to save more than $165 million annually, but with upfront charges of $160-200 million – up to $140 million of this coming from game cancellations, $25 million through a reduction in office space expenses, and there will be up to $35 million in severance packages to outgoing employees. In other words, while there won’t be a net positive from this move in FY 24-25, the company will have a not insignificant cost reduction for future years. This plan is expected to be concluded by the end of this calendar year.
Take-Two explained in an SEC filing that “As part of these efforts, the company is rationalizing its pipeline and eliminating several projects in development and streamlining its organizational structure, which will eliminate headcount and reduce future hiring needs.”
Of course Take-Two literally just acquired a significant new studio in the form of Gearbox, which Embracer sold off at a cut-price $460 million deal. That brought the Borderlands developer in under the same umbrella as its long-time publishing partner 2K Games. It’s not stated where the layoffs will be coming from, but Take-Two has over 11,000 employees with several labels including 2K Games, Rockstar and Private Division.
These are the first cost reduction effort at Take-Two since early 2023, where several underperforming games including 2022’s Marvel’s Midnight Suns, PGA Tour 2K23 and New Tales from the Borderlands saw them trying to save around $50 million. Then earlier in 2024, they announced a similar effort, though without committing to layoffs at that time. We now see them joining in the industry-wide trend of making a significant number of employees redundant.
As with all the other layoffs going on, we hope that all those affected are able to land on their feet somewhere
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