The T2 News today:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6172335...stnews;title;0
"....The publisher listed four primary aspects of the restructuring. Take-Two will consolidate its marketing, sales, and operational functions based on what they do rather than where they are in order. It will also have some label and studio staff--human resources, legal, IT--report directly to the corporate level to increase accountability. The management, marketing, and business development operations of 2K Games and 2K Sports will be consolidated on the West Coast, and Take-Two's third-party PC distribution business will be folded into its North American sales operations.
"While the decisions we are announcing today were difficult and will unfortunately require employee layoffs, we believe these necessary actions will improve the financial and operational performance of Take-Two, leading to greater value for our shareholders," CEO Ben Feder said in a statement.
In an investor conference call after the release of its earnings, Feder said "a significant percentage of our workforce" was going to be laid off, with cuts coming in sales, marketing, and administrative positions.
As for the publisher's quarterly results, Take-Two reported revenue for the three months ended April 30 of $205.4 million, down from $265.1 million in the same time frame last year. Take-Two said it reflected the strength of last year's release of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, with the shortfall made up partially by sales of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories and Major League Baseball 2K7. The publisher also posted a loss of $51.2 million, slightly worse than the $50.4 million it lost in the same quarter the year before..." (end quote)
This corroborates a post I found last Monday on 2K sports own forums- allegedly from a disgruntled 2K employee, and the post was quickly removed, but not before I saved it. This post corroborates the "Consolidation" of 2K to the West Coast office- 1 week before the official announcement (today).
No matter how you slice it- it doesn't sound too encouraging for 2K right now.
Here's the post.
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VCQA VCQA is offline
Waterboy
Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 1
Exclamation From a 2K Sports Employee
"First of all, let me apologize. I know that this post has little to contribute to the fantastic community on this board, but I could not think of a platform that would reach a more appropriate audience. Please bear with me.
I worked at the quality assurance department at Visual Concepts. We test most of the sports games published under 2K Sports. If you’ve been tester or have worked in the game industry, you know how much the QA department is relied on and how much we affect the gaming experience. For those who don’t realize the impact the testers make on games, just know that on average, the testing department at VC documents ten to twenty thousand bugs and suggestions on a full development cycle.
I first started testing at VC because of the excellent quality in their products. I am sure you are all aware that Visual Concepts makes the best sports games by far. But ever since Take Two Interactive has taken over as the parent company, the job experience has been horrible. Workers here receive inadequate compensations for all of the work they do (some have been loyal to the company for several years and have only received one nominal raise), employees occasionally do not get paid on a timely manner, and we are often treated like children. Despite several requests to reform, management and Take Two have done nothing but make things worse.
Following the recent rumblings in the board of directors at Take Two, there has been some uncertainty with the future of Visual Concepts. It‘s rumored that the entire QA department at VC is in the process of dissolving, but Take Two and management has not released any information to its employees on the matter despite several requests, preventing us from any kind of peace of mind. In all likelihood, the employees of the QA department here will be laid off with little or no notice and our jobs will be outsourced to 2K West (an original Take Two division). Not to insult our fellow employees at 2K West, but there are not enough resources for them to fully realize the quality that the Visual Concepts legacy has built over the last several years.
Please do not misinterpret this as petty vengeance or as a rant. Rather, consider this post as an explanation, an apology, an attempt to raise awareness. I’m not saying that the quality of our games will suffer, nor am I telling you to boycott 2K games. But, if Take Two destroys most of what is essential to the process of creating great games, I just want you to know what happened and why.
If the mods here can look in the other way for at least one day, QA truly thanks you." (End Quote)
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(This was taken down that same day by 2K's mods.. but it was found here:
http://www.2ksports.com/forums/showthread.php?t=121154 on Monday June 4th )
Interestingly enough, this person's post went south when some angry forum members attacked this person and alleged he was a EA employee trying to start stuff...
Hopefully, 2K can rebound from this.
06-11-2007, 10:56 PM
