Trouble at Rockstar
It seems the closing of Rockstar Games' Vienna studio two months ago was no coincidence: further cutbacks are under way at the Take-Two Interactive subsidiary. A recent GameDaily BIZ article reveals that Rockstar was also forced to close its Indie Built studio, and over the past months several executives have been fired or left voluntarily:
- Jamie King (VP of Development)
- Jennifer Gross (Director of Marketing)
- Laura Paterson (Director of Marketing)
- Navid Khonsari (Director of Development)
- Jeff Castaneda (Director of PR)
- Chris Carro (Sr. Pr Manager)
- Corey Wade (Sr. Product Mgr)
- Futaba Hayashi (Sr. Web Designer)
- Todd Zuniga (PR Manager)
- Ryan Rayhill (PR)
The closures and layoffs are no accident. Since last year's "Hot Coffee" scandal, the company's shares have dropped from $30 to $10 on the stock market, which isn't very promising for investors. The publisher is also unhappy with Table Tennis (Xbox 360) and its 83% rating on GameRankings.com, and reportedly several employees had to leave because of it.
A way out might be the good performance so far of Liberty City Stories, released last month, which has topped most sales charts since its release, as well as the fourth installment, which debuts at the end of next year.
