Take-Two Shares Plummet

On news that Rockstar was being sued by the city of L.A., the aftermath of Hot Coffee, and the 'unhealthy relationship the board of directors has with its management' Take-Two Entertainment's shares dropped sharply on Friday. From the article: "Cooper said in a note that the company is burning cash at an 'alarming' rate and that he expects 'more title delays, a possible SEC investigation and key employee departures.' This comes immediately after the news that Audit Committee Chairwoman Barbara Kaczynski resigned from the board on January 19, because she felt that management had failed to keep the board informed of key issues."

Flaming Coffee

[Zephiris]

Perhaps everyone involved with the whole San Andreas SNAFU will think twice before trying to put "hidden content" into a game that largely no one wants aside from fourteen year olds who are so craving for nudity that they'd be obsessing about pixelated polygons that take a vague shape (gee, who remembers that 'nude patch' for the Valkyrie in Gauntlet? It's all disgusting the way people are so deperate for it), lying about it, making a really bad patch for the game, then dropping all support, and screwing both users, the mod community, and...made the fundamentalists have more than enough excuse to increase the rate at which they try to shove new laws down our throats which do nothing to 'protect' anyone, but just further their careers (such as the Utah 'violent games as porn' bill).
Everyone going insane in making this, and over this, really needed a reality check (preferably the brutal hockey variety) in the first place.

Good riddance

[abbamouse]

I have a long memory, and I still haven't forgiven Take Two for releasing BC3K before it was finished way back when in order to cut their losses (at the expense of consumers who bought a literally unplayable mess). Remember, these are the people who decided to respond to years of delay on the game Battlecruiser 3000 by simply shipping what was done (a late alpha or early beta, and that's being generous) and selling it to the public as if it was a completed game. If you don't remember that whole scandal, do a web search for Take 2 and Battlecruiser.

They just seem to have a habit of releasing things a wee bit earlier than other major publishers and then skimping on the tech support to save a few pennies. Take one of my favorite series, Civilization. 1-3 were playable out of the box, although there were some bugs (Civ III's worst bug was that air superiority missions didn't work correctly). Now look at the first one to be released after Firaxis paired up with Take 2: Civ 4 was so buggy that it was unplayable with ATI cards (ie half the market). Even for nvidia owners there were graphics glitches, random crashes to desktop, memory leaks, and all other manner of nastiness.

Take 2 has become a huge publisher by pursuing profit at the expense of consumers. Don't expect them to change what seems to be working well for their wallets. It almost seems that Firaxis as the content creators fell down to the level of Take 2, their unfortunate choice of publisher. Given how much enjoyment I've received from previous Firaxis titles, I'm willing to give them a chance to make this game what it should be -- but I really wish they'd taken the high road to begin with.

I say good riddance to Take 2; I hope the company collapses. If not, I hope the current losses prompt the ouster of top management and a new approach to game publishing and customer service.

leave them alone

[Karem Lore]

For the love of God, leave them alone...This is pathetic. Even if Take Two go down the game makers will just re-combine to create a new outfit and still produce morally questionable games. But please, the hot coffee fiasco is just mindless waste of taxpayers money...

My View

[Sv-Manowar]

It seems as if hot coffee did a lot of damage to them, over something so trivial as what it actually was. This can be attributed to the media twisting it, I have read newspapers and websites that had the ordacity to claim that the hot coffee mode was standard in the game and was unlocked in the options and other similar lies, along with the whole war on porn/violent video games this has made for an unhealthy media climate which does not like the GTA games one bit.

It also reminds me of the treatment of hentai [hentai.co.uk] in the western world, with papers claiming that it is promoting rape/murder/violence to the young audience that view it, which has resulted in some distrubution firms having to close due to massive losses and protests at the sale of their products.

I think at the end of the day Take Two and Rockstar need to sit down and work through their problems, because if one falls it has the potential to bring the other down with it, and with so many people waiting for the next installment in the GTA franchise, they would be missing out on a lot of money.