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Take-Two Interactive, the publisher behind Grand Theft Auto, has announced plans to cut around 5 percent of its workforce, or around 600 people.
In a statement published on Tuesday, the company said the cuts would result in the cancellation of unnamed in-development game projects.
Take-Two estimates the cuts will save it around $160 million annually. The Plan is expected to be largely complete by December 31, 2024.
The announcement comes weeks after it was confirmed that Take-Two is acquiring Borderlands maker Gearbox in a deal worth $460m.
Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick had indicated that it intended to reduce costs earlier this year, but claimed at the time that there were “no current plans” for layoffs.
Last February, the company implemented an earlier “cost reduction program” which saw it trying to make annual savings of $50 million.
This resulted in a round of layoffs the following month, with staff at several divisions affected, including its indie publishing label Private Division.
In the year since Take-Two’s previous cost reduction program, layoffs have become a frequent occurence across the games industry. Job losses across the industry were widespread in 2023, with 9,000 layoffs estimated, and they don’t appear to be slowing this year.
The estimated total number of layoffs in 2024 so far has already reached 8,800 according to technical artist Farhan Noor’s website Game Industry Layoffs, which has been tracking confirmed games industry job cuts since the start of last year.
