Take-Two Closes Indie Built Development Studio

Author: by Jason Dobson, Simon Carless

Take-Two has confirmed that, as of Friday, the company has closed down its Salt Lake City-based development studio Indie Built (Amped 3), with the loss of an unspecified number of jobs. Take-Two acquired the Salt Lake City, Utah-based development studio from Microsoft in December 2004, in a move to focus on next-generation development. The company was originally founded as Access Software back in 1982, and was particularly known for its work on the Links golf game series, before the company moved on to early CD-ROM titles such as Under A Killing Moon. The company was acquired by Microsoft in 1999, before being passed on to Take-Two. Jim Ankner, Director of Corporate Communications at Take-Two, assured Gamasutra that the company was doing what it could to take care of those affected by the closure, stating: "Employees are being offered packages including continuation of salary and benefits, as well as other opportunities within Take-Two as appropriate." Indie Built had shipped over 37 titles on 7 different platforms. Its most recent output, in "focusing on sports titles for the next generation of gaming consoles and the PC platform", included Links 2004 for the Xbox, as well as Xbox 360 releases Amped 3 and Top Spin 2, the former of which debuted to apparently lackluster sales, despite intriguing open-level gameplay and unconventional interface choices, and is one of the first Xbox 360 titles to receive price cuts.