Shares of Take-Two finished on Wednesday at $120.76, which is down from $126.93 from the day prior, before the company announced Houser’s forthcoming departure. That’s a drop-off of nearly 5 percent, which is a giant drop for a single day.
News of Houser leaving Take-Two came out of nowhere. The company disclosed his departure in a regulatory filing in the United States, but the firm has declined to share any further details regarding the reason for his exit.
Take-Two will hold its next earnings briefing on February 6, so it might not be long until we learn more about this situation.
Given the very little information that was made available, it’s understandable that investors and analysts might be spooked, leading to a downturn in Take-Two’s share price. What we do know, however, is that Dan’s brother, Sam Houser, is staying with Rockstar as its president.
It remains to be seen what impact the loss of Dan Houser has on Rockstar’s future games, including the expected GTA 6. He was a key creative figure in the development of the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption franchises.
“It’s really unclear what we would even do with it, let alone how upset people would get with whatever we did,” Houser said about GTA 6. “Both intense liberal progression and intense conservatism are both very militant, and very angry.
“It is scary but it’s also strange, and yet both of them seem occasionally to veer towards the absurd. It’s hard to satirise for those reasons. Some of the stuff you see is straightforwardly beyond satire. It would be out of date within two minutes, everything is changing so fast.”
According to Kotaku reporter Jason Schreier, Rockstar’s workplace culture has been “rapidly improving” following the reports of extended crunch at the studio back in 2018.
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