I mean, I feel bad for the loss of income of these individuals, but I hope the industry takes this as a lesson that AI is not a sustainable investment. I doubt that lesson will be learned as soon as it needs to be before catastrophic damage happens, though
Gorotheninja on
*The head of Take-Two Interactive‘s AI team has seemingly been laid off, along with an undisclosed number of other employees working on leveraging AI at the company that owns Rockstar Games, 2K, and Zynga. The reorg comes despite CEO Strauss Zelnick saying the parent-publisher is “actively embracing generative AI.”*
*“It’s truly disappointing that I have to share with you that my time with T2 – and that of my team – has come to an end,” Luke Dicken, who became Take-Two’s head of AI in early 2025 after a decade at Zynga, wrote on LinkedIn on Thursday. He added, “We’ve been developing cutting edge technology to support game development now for 7 years. These folks know how to match innovation and novel problem solving approaches with strong product design chops to create systems that empower people throughout the development workflow.”*
*Much of Take-Two’s AI team appears to have been established out of Zynga’s existing applied AI department. Take-Two acquired the mobile gaming company in 2022 for $12.7 billion but the partnership has struggled to generate new hits. Many industry colleagues of Dicken’s shared their shock at the news of the layoffs.*
BlackTarTurd on
So, nothing of value was lost? Got it. Was worried they got rid of real talent.
Resident-Forever1340 on
I can’t wait to the near future to watch all the documentaries detailing the astronomical amounts of money companies lost chasing AI dollars. Gonna be pretty interesting as the writing is on the wall
4 Comments
I mean, I feel bad for the loss of income of these individuals, but I hope the industry takes this as a lesson that AI is not a sustainable investment. I doubt that lesson will be learned as soon as it needs to be before catastrophic damage happens, though
*The head of Take-Two Interactive‘s AI team has seemingly been laid off, along with an undisclosed number of other employees working on leveraging AI at the company that owns Rockstar Games, 2K, and Zynga. The reorg comes despite CEO Strauss Zelnick saying the parent-publisher is “actively embracing generative AI.”*
*“It’s truly disappointing that I have to share with you that my time with T2 – and that of my team – has come to an end,” Luke Dicken, who became Take-Two’s head of AI in early 2025 after a decade at Zynga, wrote on LinkedIn on Thursday. He added, “We’ve been developing cutting edge technology to support game development now for 7 years. These folks know how to match innovation and novel problem solving approaches with strong product design chops to create systems that empower people throughout the development workflow.”*
*Much of Take-Two’s AI team appears to have been established out of Zynga’s existing applied AI department. Take-Two acquired the mobile gaming company in 2022 for $12.7 billion but the partnership has struggled to generate new hits. Many industry colleagues of Dicken’s shared their shock at the news of the layoffs.*
So, nothing of value was lost? Got it. Was worried they got rid of real talent.
I can’t wait to the near future to watch all the documentaries detailing the astronomical amounts of money companies lost chasing AI dollars. Gonna be pretty interesting as the writing is on the wall