According to emerging reports, video game publisher Take-Two is laying off a number of staff. Take-Two is best known among gamers as the parent company of Rockstar Games, the publisher of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, a role it has held since all the way back in 1998.Take-Two has become known as one of the bigger players in the video games publishing realm, with the success of the Grand Theft Auto franchise propelling the company up the ladder. The portfolio of the company includes many other iconic franchises such as Bioshock, Borderlands and Red Dead. With such an array of franchises, it's perhaps surprising to hear the company is taking the step of laying off staff. Even last year, Take-Two acquired mobile developer Zynga in a deal worth $12.7 billion, which is an indicator of how fast fortunes can change in the games industry.The report of the layoffs at Take-Two comes from Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier, who claims that the layoffs will be affecting the Private Division label among others. Private Division is the publisher behind The Outer Worlds, as well as the recently-released Kerbal Space Program 2. Despite the layoffs, impact on development teams is described as "minimal," so hopefully it shouldn't have too much of a noticeable effect on any of the publisher's upcoming titles, such as Weta Workshop's upcoming Middle-Earth game. As of right now, it's unclear just how many staff members are being laid off at Take-Two.
Video game companies have been hit hard with layoffs recently, in what is proving to be a tough period for the industry. Perhaps the most notable was the January report that Microsoft is cutting 10,000 jobs, an enormous amount even given the size of the company. Hopefully the industry has seen the worst of it at this point, as it's never pleasant for game developers to lose their jobs due to circumstances beyond their control.
The reported layoffs are unlikely to affect the Grand Theft Auto franchise in any way. Grand Theft Auto Online remains an enormous hit, while Grand Theft Auto 5 remarkably remains in sales charts a decade after its release. The huge Grand Theft Auto 6 leaks last year were a setback for the publisher, but the franchise remains its flagship. It would be extremely surprising if the publisher were to make any moves that might jeopardize the development of the game, so it's likely the "other divisions" are unrelated to Rockstar Games. Hopefully further details emerge of the exact makeup of the layoffs, so speculation doesn't run rampant online.