Last week, Take Two confirmed that it had closed its Rockstar Vienna studio, promising that staff would be re-located to other offices 'where possible'. This was hardly one of the company's flagship developers - previously operating as neo Software Produktions GmbH, the team was assimiltaed into the Rockstar hive mind in January 2003 and went on to produce Xbox conversions of Max Payne and GTA.
Indeed, this would appear to be one of those little cost-cutting exercises that publishers are forced into once in a while, and may have quitely slipped off the radar if it hadn't been for (ex)employee Jurie Horneman who just happens to write the respected videogame blog, Intelligent Artifice. Before Rockstar/Take Two officially announced the closure, Horneman posted about his experience of turning up at work and being turned away by security staff - and on the uncertainty that his co-workers now face:
"Many of my coworkers - those with families and houses, those with roots in Vienna, those who invested many years of their lives in this company, those who moved here from abroad - are in difficult positions. There are few game development companies in Vienna. In the last year or so, several have let people go, merged or closed down. One hundred people will not easily find new jobs in the games business here."
This is why insider blogs have become such a vital element of the videogame industry. As we saw with EA Spouse they humanise the business. Suddenly, a small story about a global corporation tripping up again turns into something else - into something that involves 100 people arriving for work and finding their way barred by security gaurds. It is far from an unusual story, and relatively speaking, it is certainly no employment tragedy, but it is human all the same.
