Take-Two Interactive has laid off developers at Visual Concepts South.
As reported by GameDeveloper, Take-Two did not make an announcement about these layoffs, but several employees revealed that they were laid off on LinkedIn. Seeing as LinkedIn is an industry tool for game developers to share their resumes as public as possible, it’s unlikely that Visual Concepts South or Take-Two will stop them from sharing the information in this way.
We reported on layoffs at Visual Concepts Austin last February, but apparently these layoffs actually happened in September 2023. So it’s possible that these employees are posting months after the layoffs actually happened, possibly from contractual obligations with Visual Concepts, or simply as part of the process while they were collecting their benefits.
We believe this is not necessarily a new instance of layoffs. Last April, Take-Two Interactive announced that they would be laying off 5 % of their workforce, as part of a significant cost reduction program. They didn’t give an employee number during this announcement, but last May 2024, they disclosed to the SEC a headcount of 12,371 employees. Assuming Take-Two had not started layoffs from this number, they are set to lay off roughly 619 employees.
Visual Concepts’ website states that Visual Concepts South “is the studio behind the endlessly fun racer LEGO 2K Drive, and plays an integral role in developing the critically acclaimed NBA 2K franchise.”
LEGO 2K Drive released last May 2023, and reached Metacritic scores between the 60s to 70s across PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and PC. Take-Two did not share sales figures, but SteamDB shows that the game peaked at 1,039 players at launch, and saw mostly player numbers at the double digits.
So, it seems likely that LEGO 2K Drive did not do well, and it is genuinely surprising that this fell under the radar. This may have been a factor when Take-Two chose to lay off some employees at the studio, but we should also remember that Take-Two’s acquisition of Gearbox was a costly investment. There is a clear correlation between the Gearbox deal and the layoffs being announced just a few weeks later.
Some would argue that Take-Two should have purchased Gearbox years ago, and in hindsight, it’s clear that they could have made a better deal if they did that years ago. Regardless, Take-Two’s announcement makes them a late entry into the wave of industry layoffs that has now been running for two years now. We wish the best for the former employees of Visual Concepts South, and hope that they can find placement back in the video game industry.
