14 DAY TRIAL // Video game publisher Take Two has announced that it has extended the long-term employment agreements with key talent at developer Rockstar, including Sam and Dan Houser, the two men who are behind the success of the Grand Theft Auto series.
The publisher has not said exactly when the new agreements are up for renewal or renegotiation and the company says that it has not paid any outrageous sums of money to the key developers, stating “substantially similar economic terms” were used.
A new management agreement was also signed with Zelnick Media, the management company that is headed by current Chief Executive Officer Strauss Zelnick, which will run until March 31, 2015, and is subject to a vote at the 2011 annual meeting of shareholders of Take Two.
Zelnick has been leading Take Two since 2007, when he and his team have managed to oust the previous leadership team, and the CEO says that, during his term as leader, the company has managed to perform better than before, launching a string of high-profile video games that have reduced its dependence on its biggest franchise, Grand Theft Auto.
The new Zelnick Media deal could result in bonuses as big as 3.5 million dollars per year as long as certain performance targets are hit.
Take Two has announced that it has managed to grow its revenue for the fiscal year that ended on March 31 by close to 50 percent to reach 1.14 billion dollars while the profits were reported to be 53.8 million dollars, which is a significant improvement over the 108.1 million dollars loss that was posted at the same time last year.
The best performers for the company were NBA 2K11, which managed to benefit from the no show of NBA Elite 11 from Electronic Arts, Top Spin 4, Major League Baseball 2K11, Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete and the DLC package Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare.