2K Promises 'Groundbreaking Pipeline' Of Games Following Layoff Announcement
Take-Two struggles, Rocket League players revolt, and more
Take-Two buried the news it would lay off hundreds of staff and cancel roughly $140 million in internal projects in an SEC filing at the end of business on April 16. It seemed like a brutal reversal of fortunes since CEO Strauss Zelnick had said there were no plans for further layoffs as recently as March, and the publisher’s subsidiary, Rockstar Games, is expected to release Grand Theft Auto VI as early as next spring, which will probably end up being the biggest video game launch in history.
But as Gamesindustry.biz managing editor Brendan Sinclair pointed out in his weekly column, Take-Two has been struggling these last couple of years. “The company has reported seven straight quarters of net losses and its forecast says it will be eight-in-a-row once it reports its earnings next month,” he wrote. It probably doesn’t help that Zynga, which Take-Two spent $12.7 billion on in 2022, doesn’t have anything in the top-ten highest grossing mobile games list and hasn’t for years.
NBA2K24, the latest iteration of the company’s hit sports franchise, had undersold its predecessor by a million copies earlier this year. GTA Online continues to print money and Red Dead Redemption 2 sells millions of additional copies every quarter, but the larger Take-Two portfolio has been looking hallowed out for a while now. Private Division, the company’s publishing label for smaller games, has a spotty track record. The games are often great, but the sales don’t always follow (see Penny’s Big Breakaway from February). Kerbal Space Program 2, the long delayed sequel to the hit PC rocket launch sim, has been sitting with a dreaded “mixed” rating on Steam for the last 12 months.
2K is the cornerstone of Take-Two and it’s also been in a weird place lately. Outside of annual sports franchises and re-issued anthologies, Gearbox Entertainment’s Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands was the only runaway financial success from the last four years. Despite critical-acclaim, Marvel’s Midnight Suns seemed to die on the vine, and smaller games like New Tales from the Borderlands and Lego 2K Drive didn't exactly breakthrough either. 2K president David Ismailer recently suggested this is about to change, promising a “groundbreaking pipeline” for the fiscal year ahead.
“We have managed our 2K business for the long-term, investing in franchises that, in some cases, could take years to grow into successful, meaningful contributors to our portfolio,” he wrote in a Wednesday email to staff, a copy of which was shared with Dead Game. “We’re also starting to see the benefits of our new Business Unit org structure. With our investment philosophy and our new structure in place, I’m confident we will continue to deliver high quality games, build deep player connections, and grow 2K to a multi-billion-dollar label within the T2 portfolio. For the near term, we are focused on our strategic priorities and are poised to release a groundbreaking pipeline of titles in FY25, on the heels of WWE 2K24’s early success.”
Two of the biggest question marks in 2K’s portfolio are BioShock 4 at Cloud Chamber and an unannounced AAA game at 31st Union. Both were teased years ago and we’ve heard nothing about either of them since, even as other studios were rushing to reveal their projects early during the post-covid bidding war for talent. Hangar 13 is working on a new Mafia and Firaxis has teased Civilization 7, though it’s unclear when those games will be ready either. Then there’s Borderlands 4, which I’d previously heard had faced internal delays. Take-Two buying Gearbox for $460 million felt like the studio getting rescued but it could also come with tighter demands for turning around sequels to one of the few other reliably best-selling franchises out there.
Take-Two called its latest cost reduction program “rationalizing its pipeline.” Weirdly, the layoffs won’t be completed until the end of 2024, meaning there’s potentially more than half the year left for some to wonder if they’ll be getting the ax. “Our recent actions to reduce costs across several areas, delay some non-critical projects, renegotiate certain agreements, and reduce discretionary spending will make us stronger for the upcoming FY25 year, when T2 needs our performance the most,” Ismailer told staff. “This is very difficult news for our colleagues who are leaving, as well as for those of you who are continuing to work hard through this moment and support our future. Change is never easy, and saying goodbye to friends is really hard. Please be kind, empathetic, and treat everyone with the gratitude they deserve.”
Live Service Interrupted
Rocket League is getting X-Men cars inspired by the nostalgia-fueled X-Men '97 cartoon on Disney+. Cyclops, Rogue, Storm, Jeany Grey, Magneto, Jubilee, and Wolverine-themed decals are 1,000 credits ($10) for all of them or you can get the entire mega-bundle for 2,000 ($20). Some players are frustrated that the car soccer maker Psyonix appears to be flooding the zone with new cosmetics instead of content updates or game fixes, especially after killing trading in a contentious update that went live last November. It doesn't help that the X-Men skins are locked to certain vehicle styles, and are "not cross-game eligible" like other ones are.
The Marvel crossover coincides with a fresh blitz of complaints among some top Rocket League players abroad around issues like lag, cheating, DDOS attacks, and alleged missing tournament payments. A burgeoning protest among French players led by Axel "Vatira" Touret whose team previously finished in the top 10 at the 2022 Rocket League World Championship. "The studio behind Rocket League needs to break the silence," reads copy pasta currently being spammed by Touret and others online. "Millions owed to pro players, servers being DDOSed in ranked, and lackluster communication. It's time to invest in those driving esports and evolve for the community's sake!" Benjamin Wagner, coach of the Gentle Mates Alpine team that won last month's Major, begged Psyonix for a roadmap about its plans for the game and its esport moving forward.
Hearthstone players were up in arms earlier this week when a patch made weekly quests a lot harder to complete. "Some Daily and Weekly Quests have been adjusted to be harder to complete but will grant more XP," read a note hidden near the end of an otherwise exciting update introducing a new Duos mode to battlegrounds. Players now had to complete three times as many quests for an only 20 percent bump in XP earned. "Almost everyone reading this will be familiar with games that use predatory design in order to keep players logged in, whether that be to juice those all-important Daily Average User numbers so beloved of shareholders, or just in the hope that you might crack and drop some dollars in the MTX store," wrote PC Gamer's Tim Clark. "But I would say rarely are these things so nakedly egregious."
Blizzard backed down almost immediately, mostly. The company wrote that the change was intended to make weekly quests a more rewarding goal for players to work toward. "We’re putting together an unscheduled hotfix patch scaling most of the Weekly Quest requirements back down to a number between what they were before and what they are now," an update read. "We’ll keep the additional XP where it is." Not everyone thought the original quest requirement buff was so egregious. Players have continued to debate on the Hearthstone subreddit what Blizzard could do to make weekly quests meaningful without feeling like busy work that micromanages how they play the game. One fan suggested simply counting the total number of matches played across all modes instead of focusing only on wins in ranked.
Dota 2's big Crownfall update is not what some MOBA sickos were hoping for. The long-teased overhaul of the game's battle pass arrived without a new hero or major balance patch. The new reward meta-progression is laid out on an overworld map that players progress through by completing various challenges, unlocking narrative beats and new character lore along the way. It seems like a great new addition, even if it's not what some fans were expecting.
Players who wanted a big annual rework of Dota 2 that would make it feel like an entirely new game have taken to calling the update "clownfall," while others express frustration over Valve's lack of communication and expectation setting around the update. "They specifically state that they will have more consistent communication with more frequent updates, yet leave the community in the dark on what’s what," wrote one player on the subreddit. But the new Arcanas look great, even if they're $35 a piece (though that's still less than Overwatch 2's new mythic skins).
Destiny 2's free Into the Light update has players flocking back to the sci-fi MMO even if there are plenty of odd choices that make it chafe a bit. A new horde mode called Onslaught is a lot of fun but the 50 wave version takes way too long and isn't as optimized for loot as the shorter one. Bungie has responded by promising to buff loot drops in an upcoming patch. Tedious "attunement" quests to unlock each new Brave weapon from earlier eras in Destiny 2 will remain however, as will not being able to reset the mode's rank-up rewards. All of this is to fuel fans' pursuit of new "shiny" guns that are extra special and can only be earned until The Final Shape expansion launches in June, a grind that is torturing some players with bad luck and others with FOMO.
Bungie also revealed that the raid that wraps up a showdown 10-years in the making with Destiny 2's final boss will go live on June 7, just three days after the expansion launches. The community immediately freaked out. New content dumps are the rare times players are satisfied, and rushing through them is the opposite of how many like to play, especially with so many questions about what Destiny 2's future will be after this expansion. Bungie project lead Catarina Macedo took to Twitter to try and cryptically assuage fans' fears. "The Final Shape expansion is different: the additional content in the Pale Heart post-campaign and unlocking the raid for everyone is important for getting a cohesive and satisfying story experience," she wrote.
Patch Notes
Mortal Kombat April Update: "Fixed rare situation where opponent would pass through Scorpion after being hit by Spear near the corner"
Enshrouded Patch 2 version 0.7.1.1: "Fixed an issue with lighting that caused the Blue Luminescent Blocks to have a green tint. Sorry to everyone who used the blocks to fake water, the fake water looks less polluted now."
Lethal Company Version 50 The Hopping Update: "Slightly increased the weight of the shovel, to make each player less of a self-sufficient killing machine."
Darktide Path of Redemption Update: "Fixed bots dying when rescuing players hanging from a ledge in Vigil Station Oblivium."
Grounded Fully Yoked Update 1.4: "Fixed a problem where certain stacks of ladders could cause a saved game to never finish loading."
Spider-Man 2 Version 1.002.003: "Addressed an issue where some users' save data would disappear, notably after v. 1.002.000"
Rise of the Rōnin Update 1.04: "Adjusted camera work when nearby walls to now better angles where you can see the character and your opponent better."
Time capsule
Around this time back in 2008, early pirated copies of Grand Theft Auto IV were flooding the internet with players racking up achievements on Xbox 360 and uploading footage online a week ahead of launch. The online group iCON claimed responsibility for uploading the Torrent. Lawrence “Major Nelson” Hryb said Microsoft was investigating at the time.
Rockstar North cofounder David Jones told gamesindustry.biz that games were getting too expensive to make. "Crackdown wasn't that long ago and our development budget was something like USD 20 million, and even that to me now, I don't know if I could do anything for much less than that," he said. Jones confirmed that his studio had secured $50 million for its next project at the time, the open world multiplayer shooter APB: All Points Bulletin. A controversial review embargo set for one week after the game's release didn't stop it from bombing after getting widely panned.
And Nintendo held a press roundtable in New York where Shigeru Miyamoto said he wasn't sure how Wii Fit would do in America because of all the broken households. "When we asked Miyamoto what he expected from American consumers, he noted that on average, American families are apart more often than those in Japan," Jeff Bakalar reported for CNET's Crave Entertainment at the time. "A lot of families have parents who have separated or divorced, so it's tougher to predict the role family will play in the American response to Wii Fit." The motion control exercise game went on to sell 22 million copies globally.
Comings and goings
Gio Corsi, previously head of commercial at Iron Galaxy Studios, is now at Nintendo on its third-party AAA portfolio management team. Best known for his developer relations work at Sony during the PS4 years and occasionally flashing PS Vitas on stage at live showcase events, Corsi joins Nintendo as it prepares its launch year lineup for the Switch 2. He announced the move with a picture of his dad wearing a Mario cap.
Sean Palomino, a 10-year biz dev manager at Epic Games, has been hired back by the Fortnite company as a director after just a year working with indie devs at Sony. His previous self-described job to "evangelize the PlayStation platform to both registered and emerging indie partners" is currently unfilled as Sony looks for a replacement. A listing for the roles was shared on Twitter by Shuhei Yoshida. "I have no formal experience but I know I could do a better job than most," trolled one random user. "Should I apply?" The 30-year Sony man said "no."
Ray Gresko, former chief development officer at Blizzard, recently joined Disney to lead development of the company's "new games and entertainment universe." Production director on Diablo III and executive producer on Overwatch, Gresko joins the house of mouse after it invested $1.5 billion in Epic Games to collaborate on new joint gaming ventures. The industry veteran founded Nihilistic Software back in 1998 and directed Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption.
Alice O'Connor, associate editor at Rock Paper Shotgun, is leaving the storied PC gaming publication after 10 years. "Blogging can feel quite disposable, especially on the news desk, but I always liked the thought of brightening readers' days with a few scattered minutes of fun and interest," she wrote. "I'm glad to see that over time, that adds up into you wanting to see me cry, you monsters."
Cheap Games
Hades is 50 percent off on Switch
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim is 70 percent off on PlayStation
Yoku’s Island Express is 80 percent off on Xbox
Remnant 2 is 40 percent off on Steam
Get 373 games from the Palestinian Relief Bundle for just $8 on itch.io
Other News
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is coming this year, will be twice as big as the original, and seemingly feature more diversity (IGN)
Hades 2’s first technical test is blowing people away and making them horny (The Verge)
StarCraft 2 multiplayer lead David Kim has teased a new RTS from Tencent’s Lightspeed studio (VGC)
How Stellar Blade became a battleground for gaming’s latest faux culture war (Inverse)
Take-Two wins copyright lawsuit brought by LeBron James’ tattoo artist (Polygon)
A wild new shortcut was found in the Waluigi Pinball track in Mario Kart DS 20 years after release (GoNintendo)
Why a rushed attempt to rehabilitate Cities: Skylines II after a rough launch is a warning for other sequels (Game Developer)
Smash Bros. director Masahiro Sakurai explains why he thinks that actually 1986 was the best year ever for gaming (NintendoLife)