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Take-Two Shares Plummet
On news that Rockstar was being sued by the city of L.A., the aftermath of Hot Coffee, and the 'unhealthy relationship the board of directors has with its management' Take-Two Entertainment's shares dropped sharply on Friday. From the article: "Cooper said in a note that the company is burning cash at an 'alarming' rate and that he expects 'more title delays, a possible SEC investigation and key employee departures.' This comes immediately after the news that Audit Committee Chairwoman Barbara Kaczynski resigned from the board on January 19, because she felt that management had failed to keep the board informed of key issues."
I know a guy down in Vice City who'll get the job done right.
I wonder if the stock price was affected by the office fire earlier this week? It gives 'burning through cash' a whole different meaning.
Or maybe the stock price had something to do with the office fire...
And was I the only one that was surprised that Hot Coffee didn't result in a huge sales boom?
Denver Isuzu Suzuki
The article failed to mention that Ms Kaczynski was a token boardmember -- she was the former CFO of the NFL and was supposed to help out with the NFL. EA's 5-year Madden deal did her in.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I have a long memory, and I still haven't forgiven Take Two for releasing BC3K before it was finished way back when in order to cut their losses (at the expense of consumers who bought a literally unplayable mess). Remember, these are the people who decided to respond to years of delay on the game Battlecruiser 3000 by simply shipping what was done (a late alpha or early beta, and that's being generous) and selling it to the public as if it was a completed game. If you don't remember that whole scandal, do a web search for Take 2 and Battlecruiser.
They just seem to have a habit of releasing things a wee bit earlier than other major publishers and then skimping on the tech support to save a few pennies. Take one of my favorite series, Civilization. 1-3 were playable out of the box, although there were some bugs (Civ III's worst bug was that air superiority missions didn't work correctly). Now look at the first one to be released after Firaxis paired up with Take 2: Civ 4 was so buggy that it was unplayable with ATI cards (ie half the market). Even for nvidia owners there were graphics glitches, random crashes to desktop, memory leaks, and all other manner of nastiness.
Take 2 has become a huge publisher by pursuing profit at the expense of consumers. Don't expect them to change what seems to be working well for their wallets. It almost seems that Firaxis as the content creators fell down to the level of Take 2, their unfortunate choice of publisher. Given how much enjoyment I've received from previous Firaxis titles, I'm willing to give them a chance to make this game what it should be -- but I really wish they'd taken the high road to begin with.
I say good riddance to Take 2; I hope the company collapses. If not, I hope the current losses prompt the ouster of top management and a new approach to game publishing and customer service.
Make cheese not war 8:)
....have any effect on it?
I wonder if they were banking having Liberty City Stories being their next cash cow(like GTA3 on up did), but fell way short of expectations.
It's understandable. They latched onto a next-gen portable(PSP) thinking it would sell like hotcakes, but it didn't. Not so much the fault of the game itself, but moreso the PSP itself not doing so well.
If I were them, I would have hired the multi-theft-auto developers full-time and make some sort of MMORPG stat to milk out the last of the GTA franchise. A multi player GTA would be more fun than LCS.