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Take-Two says that layoffs are needed in order to have “another long period of success.”

• Jacob Chambers
• March 9th, 2023

Take-Two, which publishes Grand Theft Auto, Borderlands, and many other well-known game series, has confirmed that layoffs are happening at the company and said, “We are taking these necessary steps to position the company for another long period of success.” In its 2023 fiscal third quarter, Take-Two made $1.4 billion in sales, which is a 56% increase from the same time last year.

Jason Schreier of Bloomberg said that layoffs started at Take-Private Two’s Division, which is in charge of publishing games like Kerbal Space Program and OlliOlli World. They also happened in other parts of the company that were not named.

Video game publisher Take-Two is laying people off today in its Private Division label and other divisions, sources tell Bloomberg. Spokesman Alan Lewis says the cuts "will better align our organization with our long-term priorities" and that the impact on dev teams is "minimal."

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) March 7, 2023

Take-Two admitted that it had let people go, and in a statement to PC Gamer, it said that most of the people who were let go were from “targeted reductions in our US teams, mostly in corporate operations and label publishing.” Alan Lewis, a company representative, said, “We continue to make strategic investments in our talent and technology to deliver our long-term pipeline, and these changes have had very little effect on our US development teams.”

Lewis also says, “Outside the US, we have started procedures that are in line with local law and could lead to similar cuts.” With this “cost reduction program,” Take-Two hopes to save as much as $50 million.

Private Division was started in 2017 and focused on smaller, independent games. Some of these games, like the excellent roguelike Hades and the ambitious sci-fi mind-bender The Outer Worlds, went on to get a lot of praise from critics.