The CEO of Take Two Interactive, Strauss Zelnick, said the company did not close Roll7 and Intercept Games, the studios behind the OlliOlli and Kerbal Space Program 2 series, denying the rumors of recent weeks. All’s well that ends well, in short… if it weren’t for that according to Jason Schreier the company is lying and to prove it he published the alleged email sent by Take-Two to Roll7, which on the contrary talks about a closure of the studio.
But let’s go step by step. At the beginning of the month, Bloomberg reported on its pages about the alleged closure of Roll7 and Intercept Games, with the former confirmed by an internal note from the studio that came to the attention of Jason Schreier (but not reported directly), while for the authors of Kerbal Space Program there is a note from the Washington State Employment Security Department to prove it.
In the last few hours, on the occasion of the latest Take-Two meeting, where among other things the official launch window of GTA 6 was revealed, CEO Strauss Zelnick denied these rumorswhile confirming the cost reduction plan carried out by the company.
“We didn’t close those studios, to be clear,” Zelnick told IGN. “And we’re always reviewing our publication schedule for all of our studies to make sure it makes sense. So we are very cautious because we are in the midst of a cost reduction program that we have already concluded and are now fully implementing. We announced that we are saving $165 million in current and future costs, but we haven’t closed anything.”
Zelnick’s words would therefore seem to definitively close the issue. However, IGN in an attempt to provide further clarity, asked Zelnick if he was denying the previously mentioned Bloomberg report, but this time received a fairly vague answer from a company spokesperson.
“In the document we presented, we talked about a cost reduction plan of approximately 5% headcount reduction worldwide, but we did not provide a breakdown by label.” On the third attempt, the outlet received a second response from the PR: “We provided no further details beyond what I just said.”
The letter sent to Roll7 and the precedent of 2K Marin
Following the publication of the news by IGN, Jason Schreier commented on the story on X suggesting that Zelnick’s words do not correspond to realityusing as evidence an excerpt from the letter sent by Take-Two to Roll7, with permission from the source, where it would actually appear that the studio has been closed or in any case is scheduled to close, as part of the plan to cut the company’s costs.
“Over the past year, in a plan to achieve greater operational efficiency, we have cut the budget allocated to new game prototypes. Unfortunately, we have also released several titles that did not reach their success potential,” the statement reads.
“All of this has occurred in a market where high-quality independent games have struggled to emerge, which has put even more pressure on the company to find efficiencies and be profitable. We therefore propose to close Studio Roll7.
Clearly we are not certain that the note shared by Schreier is true or if the plans have changed over time, so the words of the Take-Two CEO are officially valid.
Having said that, Jason Schreier recalls that it is not the first time that the company’s words do not reflect reality, citing the case of 2K Marin, the Bioshock 2 studio, quietly closed at the end of 2013, although Take-Two never confirmed its closure. Indeed, the following year CEO Zelnick declared that the team was still active and working on the Bioshock series.
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