Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of Rockstar and 2K Games, has sold its boutique publishing label Private Division to an undisclosed buyer for an undisclosed amount. The buyer has acquired the rights to “substantially all” of Private Division’s live and unreleased tracks. The sale was announced in Take-Two’s latest financial report.
The news comes several months after reports that Take-Two plans to close two studios owned by Private Division – Kerbal Space Program 2 Developer Intercept Games and London-based Roll7, developer of the OlliOlli skating series. At this point, most of the Private Division’s personnel were also said to have been laid off. Take-Two has confirmed to GamesIndustry.biz that both studios were closed before the sale.
Take-Two retains a Private Division game: No rest for the wickedan action role-playing game from Ori and the Blind Forest Developer Moon Studios. The game is still in Early Access and Take-Two says it will continue to support it.
Next to Kerbal Space Program 2Private Division’s Mystery Buyer has acquired the publishing rights to the cozy game The Lord of the Rings Tales from the Shire (which actually looks pretty good) and Project Blooman action-adventure game from Pokémon developer Game Freak.
Private Division was founded by Take-Two in 2017 with the idea of helping independent studios realize more ambitious and expensive projects that fall somewhere between traditional indie games and mainstream AAA productions. Initially, the release of the science fiction role-playing game Obsidian caused a stir The Outer Worlds and purchasing popular physics simulations Kerbal space program from its original development team. But there have been few hits since then. The much praised Kerbal Space Program 2which was released in 2023 and is still in Early Access, has “mostly negative” user reviews on Steam – and no current developer following the closure of Intercept Games.
Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick told GamesIndustry.biz that the publisher wants to focus on big-budget games, like the upcoming one from Rockstar Grand Theft Auto 6. “We really are the best at these big AAA experiences,” he said. “The Private Division team has done a great job supporting independent developers, and every project they have supported has done a good job at almost the same time.” However, the scope of these projects has honestly been on the smaller side, and we are in working in the industry to achieve great success.”
