Take-Two targets the little ones
It is therefore the more “indie” section of Take-Two which will pay the price for the publisher. As a reminder, the label Private Division was launched to support studios who were aiming for titles that were a little too ambitious for indie but also more reasonable than AAA. Since 2017, we have been treated to some great examples of success such as The Outer Worlds of Obsidian or Ancestors of Panache.
A success which probably led to revising the ambitions upwards and thus in 2020 after having acquired the license Kerbal Space ProgramTake-Two poached the teams from Star Theory Games (which closed a few weeks later) to form Intercept Games. The studio then inherited the project Kerbal Space Program 2 which was released in early access in February 2023 and which therefore risks never having a full version.
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And in November 2021, it's the English studio Roll7 which had been bought by Take-Two which was already to publish via Private Division their two titles planned for 2022, namely the very nice OlliOlli World And Rollerdrome. There does not seem to be any question of ending collaborations with various small teams and Private Division logically remains behind No Rest for the Wicked, Tales of the Shire, Eternal Strands and the next projects from Game Freak or Bloober Team.
No relocations planned
But for just the two studios that belonged to Private Division, this appears to be the end. According to Jason Schreier, Roll7 employees reportedly received a document informing them of the closure of their business and the receipt of severance pay. And in the case of Intercept Games, doubt is even less permitted since the information was published on the Washington State Department of Employment Security website.
We learn that Take-Two would have warned the organization on Monday of the closure of offices located in Seattle and which would contain 70 employees, which therefore corresponds to the size and location of the Intercept Games teams. For its part, the last public figure dating from 2023 stated that Roll7 employed 55 people. As a reminder, Take-Two planned to lay off 5% of its workforce, or a little more than 600 people.
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And as always…
This is not the first time that the publisher has attacked Private Division to catch up on other costs since already last year, it was this section which had to separate part of its teams to save around fifty million dollars and take care of your financial balance sheet.
We can understand that companies in turmoil are forced to reach this point but obviously, the pill passes less easily a month after having spent 460 million to buy Gearbox. Because yes, the group is very far from being to be pitied with a GTA 6 on the horizon, microtransactions of GTA Online Or NBA 2Kand has just released a TopSpin 2k25 who already annoys more than one with his choices.
And if that's not enough for you, we remind you that after his search for 50 million savings last year, the CEO Strauss Zelnick did not hesitate to grant himself a bonus of 21 million at the end of the year in order to double his salary and increase it to 42 million. Strauss Zelnick who did not hesitate to make fun of competitors earlier by declaring that he would not lay off massively…