In its recent quarterly earnings, Take-Two Interactive announced that it has sold its indie games label, Private Division, to an unnamed buyer, following the rumors that Take-Two laid off most of Private Division’s staff.
This publishing house was behind some popular published titles, such as The Outer Worlds and OlliOlli World.
This news comes a few months after the shutdown of the Roll7 and Intercept, which was part of the company’s shift toward mobile and blockbuster games, according to Take-Two’s CEO Strauss Zelnick.
Take-Two did not mention the name of the buyer or the price it was sold. Take-Two spokesperson Alan Lewis wrote in an emailed statement to The Verge:
“We recently made the strategic decision to sell our Private Division label to focus our resources on growing our core and mobile businesses for the long-term. As part of this transaction, the buyer purchased our rights to substantially all of Private Division’s live and unreleased titles.”
Take-Two will continue to support No Rest for the Wicked, which launched in Early Access on PC in April. We are grateful for the contributions that the Private Division team has made to our company and are confident that they will continue to achieve success in their new home.”
Analysts also say that the label has been long since haunted by “a string of flops, including Kerbal Space Program 2, which was full of bugs and panned by fans.”
The rights to the Private Division games, such as The Lord of the Rings, Tales of the Shire, and the Game Freak’s untitled game known as Project Bloom, will be moved to the new buyer, except for No Rest for the Wicked.
Strauss Zelnick said that they will soon reveal the buyer. He also said, “The team of Private Division did a great job supporting independent developers and, almost to a one, every project they supported did well.”