Take-Two has sold Private Division to an unnamed buyer: 'We are top-ten hit makers around here,' and Private Division wasn't making them
Take-Two Interactive has confirmed that it has sold Private Division, the "high-end indie" publishing label it launched in 2017, to an undisclosed buyer, along with "substantially all of Private Division’s live and unreleased." The one exception is No Rest for the Wicked, the action RPG that launched into early access earlier this year, which Take-Two will continue to support.
Private Division was intended to help make games "from top independent developers" become "critically and commercially successful on a global scale," but it didn't have a great track record on that front. The Outer Worlds was an early success, but it's been rough in more recent years: Kerbal Space Program 2, expected to be Private Division's flagship game, was a notable flop.
Speaking during an investors call today, Take-Two CEO and chairman Strauss Zelnick suggested that the flops weren't the issue—the real problem is that even Private Division's hits just weren't big enough.
"We're really impressed with what Michael Worosz and the team built with Private Division," Zelnick said. "They brought onboard and launched a number of titles over the past several years, and virtually all of them worked out, and a couple of them were pretty big breakouts. At the same time, it became clear that our thesis, which is 'work with independent developers, bring them into this independently minded division, and perhaps create new, huge, durable intellectual properties for the company,' was going to be challenging at best.
"The titles, though big, were not big in the context of our core intellectual properties at 2K and Rockstar. And our job really is to focus on making the biggest and best hits in the marketplace. We're not the long tail company. We are top-ten hit makers around here. That's where we are on the console side, that's where we are on the mobile side, and that is the core of any mature entertainment business—being a top ten player."
Take-Two has also confirmed, months after the fact, that Kerbal Space Program 2 developer Intercept Games and OlliOlli maker Roll7 have been closed. The closures were initially reported in May as part of major layoffs at Take-Two, but Zelnick said shortly afterward that they had not actually been shut down. A Take-Two representative has now told GamesIndustry that both studios were closed at some point prior to the Private Division sale. The buyer is expected to be announced "relatively soon."