14 DAY TRIAL // Take Two, best known for putting out Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series of games, has published its results for the third quarter of the fiscal year and reported a 55 million USD loss, mostly because it lacked a blockbuster release.
The biggest games the company has put out have been The BIGS 2, which was released for multiple platforms but has not gained traction, Civilization IV: The Complete Edition for the PC, which repackages the latest Sid Meier title, and casual title Party Bash for the Nintendo Wii.
During the same period of 2008, Take Two reported a profit of 51.8 million dollars on sales of 433.8 million, as Grand Theft Auto IV was still selling well after its release.
The results for the current quarter are showing how dependent Take Two is, at the moment at least, on the videogames that Rockstar puts out. This might change in the coming year as the company gets ready to put out a sequel to BioShock and a new Max Payne videogame. These games were initially scheduled for late 2009 but were then delayed.
One good piece of news Take Two had to communicate was that it finally settled a class action law suit related to the Hot Coffee mod. The legal action was brought against the company after a modder unlocked explicit mature content in the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas videogame, which had been included but not activated by the developers.
Strauss Zelnick, who is the chairman of Take Two, has said that “We're pleased to have reached this settlement and put this historical matter behind us.” It might be a thing of the past but the settlement has cost the publisher no less than 20 million dollars, of which the company is set to pay up 4.9 million while insurance companies will be covering the rest of the sum.