GTA VI publisher Take-Two is laying off 5% of its staff and canceling games

A funny meme, a scary situation.

According to reports preparing for the announcement of a new Mafia (announcement expected at one of the major summer shows), some unpleasant news came - Take-Two (owners of Rockstar, 2K, and Private Division) reduced its staff by 5% and also canceled several unannounced games. Interestingly, two months ago, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick (pay $50 for the reissue of Red Dead Redemption) assured that there were no plans to lay off people.

In a recent annual report, Take-Two reported having 11,580 employees - meaning 579 specialists will lose their jobs. Which specific departments were affected by the cuts - not reported.

Take-Two is the publisher of such well-known game series as GTA, Red Dead Redemption, Mafia, BioShock, XCOM, and Civilization. Which unannounced games Take-Two has decided to cut this time is also unknown.

Thanks to the stabilization measures described above, Take-Two expects to reduce expenses by approximately $200 million. And this is a quite indicative situation, which best illustrates (to a greater extent) the modern game development industry - a company that is very likely to earn $3-4 billion within 6 months after the release of a well-known game next year, is "forced" to lay off employees to... increase its profits. As they say, a funny meme, a scary situation.