Take-Two Interactive Rewards Rockstars

by gtaadmin on 13/03/09 at 12:57 pm

At a post earnings conference call a few days ago, Take-Two Interactive stated that 40% of its business in the November - January period was from its subsidiary company, Rockstar Games. And when we say Rockstar Games, we really mean Grand Theft Auto.

To date more than 13 million units of Grand Theft Auto 4 have been shipped since its release to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in April 2008. Riding the wave of this success, top Rockstar management (Sam and Dan Houser and the game's producer, Leslie Benzies) have renegotiated lucrative contracts with Take-Two. The new contracts offer them a stock-based profit-sharing arrangement in order to retain their services until January 31, 2012.

In a recent announcement Take-Two revealed that it plans to give a total of 2,849,003 shares out to "certain emplyees" of Rockstar games. Considering that currently the Take-Two share price stands at $7.10, that amounts to a whopping $20.2 million in stock based compensation. The bonus will need to be approved by the shareholder committee at the end of the month, but if you consider just how many successful games the Rockstar team has delivered to Take Two, there shouldn't be any problems.

No, I don'tthink they have any vacancies at the moment.