Embracer sell off more assets with Gearbox being acquired by Take-Two for $460m

Grand Theft Auto maker Take-Two is laying off five per cent of its workforce as part of a new cost cutting program.

Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two has announced it will lay off five percent of its 11,000-strong workforce — equating to around 550 people — and cancel multiple in-development projects. The company said the move was the next stage in its ongoing restructuring plan, which began in February.

Take-Two Interactive is embarking on another cost cutting program, and this one will see the company layoff about 5% of its employees by the end of the year.

Take-Two Interactive, the publisher behind Grand Theft Auto, has announced plans to cut around 5 percent of its workforce, or around 600 people.

Take-Two Interactive plans to lay off 5 percent of its workforce, or about 600 employees, by the end of the year, as reported in an SEC filing Tuesday. The studio is also canceling several in-development projects. These moves are expected to cost $160 million to $200 million to implement, and should result in $165 million in annual savings for Take-Two.

Despite seemingly escaping the Embrace(r) of death through their sale to Take-Two at the end of last month, Gearbox Entertainment haven’t quite emerged unscathed. The studio has confirmed a number of layoffs shortly after the announcement of the sale, while clarifying that no positions related to the development of games were affected.

Gearbox Entertainment has announced an unspecified number of redundancies following its sale from Embracer last week.

Take-Two has announced plans to acquire Gearbox Entertainment from the embattled Embracer Group, in a deal reported to be worth $460 million. The buyout makes logical sense, as Gearbox Entertainment will operate under the framework of 2K Games, which has long been the publisher of the popular Borderlands series. It’ll be led by founder Randy Pitchford.

Following the sales of Saber Interactive (to a new company founded by Saber CEO Matthew Karch) and Gearbox Software (to Take-Two), the Embracer Group held an investors call to confirm the end of its dreaded restructuring program.

Embracer Group finally confirmed that it is selling Borderlands studio Gearbox Entertainment to Take-Two Interactive, but there’s a catch: Embracer Group will retain ownership of Gearbox Publishing.

Alongside announcing plans to buy Borderlands developers Gearbox from the collapsing wreckage of Embracer Group, Borderlands publishers Take-Two overnight casually mentioned that they are "in active development on next installment in Borderlands series". This isn't a formal announcement as much as a businessblast to hype shareholders, so it didn't have anything specific to say about what Gearbox are up to with their wildly popular and deeply unfunny looter shooter series. It had seemed curious that the much-delayed Borderlands movie was coming out five years after the latest main series game and with no new one in sight.

We knew Gearbox Software was about to be sold by Embracer, and today, Take-Two announced it had reached an agreement to purchase the 25-year-old Texan developer for $460 million.