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Breaking: Take-Two Closes Rockstar Vienna

According to Gamasutra sources, Take-Two label Rockstar has unexpectedly closed its Rockstar Vienna development office (particularly known for its Grand Theft Auto Xbox conversion) under cover of E3, laying off more than 100 employees.

Simon Carless, Blogger

May 11, 2006

1 Min Read
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According to independent reports received by Gamasutra, Rockstar has unexpectedly closed its Rockstar Vienna development office (particularly known for its Grand Theft Auto Xbox conversion) under cover of E3, laying off more than 100 employees, in a major blow to development in Austria, where the company was the biggest developer. In addition, further confirmation has come in the form of a weblog post by Rockstar Vienna employee Jurie Horneman: "This morning, as I came into work, I was greeted by security guards. It turned out Take-Two has closed their Rockstar Vienna office, effective immediately, "due to the challenging environment facing the video game business and our Company during this platform transition"." This closure follows the shuttering of 2K's Indie Built Studio in Salt Lake City, and shows that Take-Two is suffering significantly through the hardware transition - or, at least, has taken the opportunity to change its internal development strategy, leading to the closure of these studios. The company has made no public statement on Rockstar Vienna's closure - the developer was believed to be working on at least one non-conversion original title, which is now presumed cancelled, or on any other staff changes as of press time.

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About the Author

Simon Carless

Blogger

Simon Carless is the founder of the GameDiscoverCo agency and creator of the popular GameDiscoverCo game discoverability newsletter. He consults with a number of PC/console publishers and developers, and was previously most known for his role helping to shape the Independent Games Festival and Game Developers Conference for many years.

He is also an investor and advisor to UK indie game publisher No More Robots (Descenders, Hypnospace Outlaw), a previous publisher and editor-in-chief at both Gamasutra and Game Developer magazine, and sits on the board of the Video Game History Foundation.

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