It turns out the game is a personal favorite of Houser's too. (and had to undergo a pre-release examination by a judge in Florida), the sensationalism that surrounded the game's release quickly subsided to be replaced by high praise.Įarlier this month I had a chance to speak with Rockstar's Dan Houser about the impending release of Grand Theft Auto 5 and, as things wrapped up, I couldn't help but bring up Bully, a personal favorite of mine. While the game was banned in Brazil and pulled from some stores in the U.K. Caught in the middle: A video game consuming public that was coming into its own as a mainstream force and as a group expecting more serious, more adult topics in their entertainment. On the other you had freedom of speech defenders likening the game to such works as Judy Blume's Blubber. On one side you had lawmakers and anti-video game rabble rousers decrying the game's examination of and ability to bully.
Borderlands 3, for instance, is said to have cost around $95 million to make, plus $140 million for its DLC - though it was reportedly massively over budget.Released in 2006 to high praise and much controversy, Rockstar Games’ Bully was a video game well ahead of its time both in the mechanics of play and the deft way in which it treated a serious topic. It's also a not-insignificant chunk of what it takes to make some of Take-Two's biggest titles. Whatever the case, $53 million is a hefty amount to lose on a game, even if it is just a fraction of what the company makes in a quarter (in this case, $985 million in net bookings). It also appears to have been deleted from Rockstar's games section on its website, and its trademark was abandoned in 2018. Its website was shut down just last month without any explanation. Another possibility is Agent, a Cold War espionage thriller that did get originally announced at E3 2009. Though the earnings indicated the title was unannounced, one possibility is that it could have been the long-hoped-for Bully 2, though there's no evidence to confirm this. When reached for comment, Take-Two declined to give further detail as to what the canceled game was. In Take-Two's case, this effectively means that it spent about $53 million on a game it was making, but no longer expects to be able to do anything sellable with the things it spent that money on. GameStop might report an impairment charge on its amiibo for the amount of money it expects to lose by putting them on heavy discount just to get them out of its warehouse. Then, sudddenly, Nintendo cancels amiibo support for its games and no one wants to buy those amiibo anymore. For example, say GameStop buys a lot of amiibo, expecting to sell them for a certain amount of money. The company cites the cancellation in its earnings as part of an "impairment charge," which in releases like these means that the company had assets that it now finds are unexpectedly worth a whole lot less than they previously valued them at. We got a rare glimpse into the process during Take-Two's earnings today, which revealed that an unannounced game cancellation cost the company $53 million. Games get canceled all the time, and while we occasionally hear about them via official announcements or reporting, more often they are canceled before they ever reach the news.
“2K has also assured me that the company believes H13 can deliver a critical and commercial success, and we will begin developing future projects soon.”Īpproximately 200 people are impacted by the game's cancellation, Kotaku reports. “We are confident that there are many opportunities for H13 employees to work on other games in development, both at H13 and across the label," wrote studio head Haden Blackman in an email to staff today.
Update 4:03pm PT: A Kotaku report has provided a few more details about the canceled title, saying it was a third-person action title similar to Destiny, and was canceled because Take-Two determined the costs of development were too high compared to the game's commercial viability. The studio's employees will meet to discuss next steps on Thursday. The report goes on to say that the game had been in development since 2017, and had troubles with reboots, technological hiccups, and COVID-19. Update: According to a Bloomberg report, the unannounced game in question was being developed by Mafia 3 studio Hangar 13 and was code-named Volt.