Industry anger over GTA 6 publisher's closure of two acclaimed studios despite commercial successes

"You can create a Golden Joystick nominated Indie game that has 9/10 on IGN and Steam reviews, wins a BAFTA for best British Game, is profitable, and the megacorps will still shut you down 💔"

The tweets rightly point out that Zelnick, who received more than double his standard financial compensation last year, going from $16 million to $42 million, could have quite literally kept both studios afloat with the money he earned from that year alone.

[Profchaos]

Zelnick is such a two faced pos he has no idea and would probably hold a controller upside down

[CrimsonWing69]

If they were so commercially viable then why would a publisher close them? That makes no sense.

[DaleCooper]

That's what I wonder. The Roll7 games are great, but if they're closing the studio then we can assume the games didn't sell well. The article, says they're commercial successes, but the only proof they have is a tweet by someone saying Rollerdrome was "profitable" but there are no sales numbers anywhere in that article.

[CrimsonWing69]

Yea I’m pretty sure their projects weren’t profitable. You don’t close down a money maker if you’re running a business… it’s just one of those things 🤷‍♂️

[ROCKY28]

Tom Bass should be fired as well

[lucasnooker]

The gaming industry isn’t run by gamers. It’s run by selfish ignorant suits

[jambola]

It is though
Because every single one of these people complaining, will but gta 6
Or FIFA, madden, call of duty
Or spend money on the next prefatory mobile garbage

[z2g]

sucks but business is business. its not just about being profitable. that's def the goal, but the goal is also to remain profitable. and if the forecasts suggest that the studios will cost more than the profits they will make into the future vs operating costs etc.... you're in a delicate spot. indie shops still cost money to run and the reliability of profits vs operating costs vs future sales are things we as the public just aren't privy to. The last studio I worked at made Titanic's visual effects, work, does 90% of the visual effects in marvel movies/shows, won tons of BAFTAs, CLIOs, Academy Awards and so on and still filed bankruptcy... twice. That's why I don't work there now. despite the successes, the forecasts weren't good.

it still sucks and I feel like they prob didn't need to do this but at the same time, we don't know their reasoning. I don't think corps are inherently evil, they just prioritize money over anything else - they may not care about ppl, but I don't think they are intentionally trying to screw ppl's lives up.. so if they are cutting costs, then they see something as a potential problem, and we as the public don't see the full story - of which there are always two sides.

[PRIMORDUS]

Pirate GTA 6 when it hits PC and don't give them a dime. Then post links of the torrent to Take-Two's official email address. Just imagine if everyone on PC did this, the damage it would do and I would love it. 😁