After Take-Two Interactive announced it would be laying off 5% of its workforce in April, it was reported just a couple of weeks later that the company would also be shuttering two of its subsidiaries: Roll7 and Intercept Games. However, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has denied closing down any such studios while at the same time refusing to confirm that they’re still open.
During an interview with IGN, Zelnick was asked about why it was decided that Roll7 (the London-based studio behind Rollerdrome and OlliOlli World) and Intercept Games (the Seattle-based studio that made Kerbal Space Program 2) would close. Zelnick simply answered with, “We didn’t shutter those studios,” adding, “We’ve announced that we’re saving $165 million in existing and future costs, but we haven’t shuttered anything.”
IGN did push for a definitive answer on whether this means both studios remain operational, but a PR representative stepped in to refer back to the company’s cost reduction plan. Basically, all Take-Two is willing to say is that 5% of staff worldwide were let go, but it “did not give a label-by-label breakdown of what that looks like.” When asked again about the status of Roll7 and Intercept Games, the PR representative only said, “We have not provided any additional color beyond what I just said.”
So, does this mean Take-Two is denying the Bloomberg report? Again, it didn’t offer a concrete answer but, in the wake of IGN’s interview, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier posted on Twitter part of the note Roll7 employees had received and shared with him. The note clearly states, “We are therefore proposing to shut down [Roll7].” As for Intercept Games, Bloomberg had spotted a notice filed with the Washington State Employment Security Department, which showed Take-Two intended to shut down a Seattle-based office and cut 70 employees. That description perfectly matches Intercept Games.
This whole situation is frankly bizarre since there is evidence of Roll7 and Intercept Games’ closure, yet Take-Two is saying this isn’t the case. Surely if Take-Two intended to keep both studios open, it would just say so, but it isn’t for some reason. Although this wouldn’t be the first time Take-Two’s done this. 2K Marin, the studio behind BioShock 2, was shut down in 2013 after mass layoffs (per Rock Paper Shotgun), but 2K never acknowledged the closure. Zelnick even insisted that 2K Marin would be responsible for helming the BioShock series months after reports of the studio’s closure (per GamesIndustry.biz). For the record, a new BioShock is in development, but at a new internal studio called Cloud Chamber, which had taken over 2K Marin’s old San Francisco office according to a 2019 report by Eurogamer.
I cannot fathom what advantage there is to pretending that a studio is still open. It’s bad enough that studio shutdowns are becoming distressingly common in the games industry, with Microsoft just recently closing four of its own, including Tango Gameworks. If the 2K Marin example is anything to go by, Take-Two may not ever formally announce the closures of Roll7 and Intercept Games, even if we never see a new game from either of them.
