Take-Two posts annual report as board member resigns

Barbara Kaczynski resigns from company, cites Hot Coffee and "increasingly unhealthy relationship" between management and the board.

It was good news, bad news for Take-Two Interactive today. The company announced that it had finished its delayed annual report, but it revealed that a board member had resigned, throwing a little dirt on her way out.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission today, Take-Two Interactive announced the resignation of Barbara A. Kaczynski, a member of the company's board of directors and corporate governance committee and chair of its audit committee.

Included in the filing was Kaczynski's letter of resignation, which offered no reason for her departure, and a letter from her new legal representation, which did. In addition to concern over the Hot Coffee scandal, the resulting Federal Trade Commission investigation, and various SEC inquiries, Kaczynski was unhappy with the communication and cooperation (or lack thereof) provided to her by company management. The letter indicated that the situation had grown worse in connection with the company's delayed filing of its annual report.

"Ms. Kaczynski's concerns have risen significantly because of what she views as an increasingly unhealthy relationship between senior management and the board of directors," according to the letter from her law firm. "In her experience, management's interactions with the board were characterized by a lack of cooperation and respect. Moreover, Ms. Kaczynski felt that management failed to keep the board informed of important issues facing the company or failed to do so in a timely fashion."

Kaczynski has been replaced on the board by Michael J. Malone, chairman of DMX Music until that company's bankruptcy in February of 2005 and current chairman of charter jet company Erin Air and member of the board of directors and audit committee for Expeditors International of Washington Inc.

While Take-Two still hasn't filed its annual report with the SEC, the company said that it expects to do so by the close of business February 1 and that the preliminary numbers reported by the company haven't changed. The same announcement contained an update on the recent fire at the company's Manhattan offices. While no employees were injured, the offices were damaged such that the company is temporarily relocating that facility's workers, though it does not expect the fire to have a significant effect on its bottom line.

26 Comments

  • tyboho

    Posted Jan 30, 2006 2:45 pm PT

    Thank you america for scaring the innovation out of our developers, now all us grown folk will have the best of time playing nintendogs and watching pickachu do the same fricking thunder bolt on another puppy looking bad guy

  • Silverblade-GR

    Posted Jan 30, 2006 3:44 am PT

    Well said foggie. It seems violence is acceptable for youths, while sex isn't. I think that the other way around would be way more healthy. Normal teenagers do not fantacize about running over people with cars, but about having sex, and any expert can tell you this is perfectly healthy. And don't take me wrong: GTA is a great game, a fact which people usually ignore because of the violence.

    But the truth is that GTA is about giving the player the freedom to do as he pleases while playing the role of a gangster from various cultural and racial backgrounds. But in the mean time you can play it as a taxi or ambulance driver or a vigilante cop. You can just drive around for hours, play pool, fly a plane or jump off it in a parachute. If some people choose to kill everything on sight, well that tells something about them, perhaps, and not the game. Besides, wanton violence and destruction in the end leads to having the entire police force on your tail and eventually getting busted or wasted, losing your hard-earned weapons and some money too.

    And as for mature games depicting sex scenes, you can forget about them as long as this idiotic AO policy for products which are not pornographic persists.

  • Suissant

    Posted Jan 29, 2006 12:41 pm PT

    Max Payne was made by Remedy, they just published it

  • foggie

    Posted Jan 29, 2006 9:51 am PT

    How foolish is it to scorn at a fairly rare occurrence of sex scenes in a game that is full of mindless violence - not to mention that hacking was necessary to make it even possible to see the scenes? I don't blame Rockstar artists and programmers at all, only say they should've known what kind of people they're dealing withh; I blame all the close minded people that made such a huge problem out of this issue. So, for 17 years olds it is OK to go around with chain saw, rocket launcher or shotgun and kill pedestrians, gangsters, cops and whoever they feel like, but it's not OK to have a cup of "hot coffee" with a steady girlfriend? Oh come on, I thought this wasn't even an issue, but obviously still a large amount of people have really distorted views on morality.

    So I can only hope Take Two recuperates with whoever replaces Miss Kaczynski and Rockstar North continues to make great games - for PCs too!

  • Acurev

    Posted Jan 29, 2006 7:46 am PT

    They new to make a game as a good and original and fun as Max Payne. I thought MP was revolutionary when it first came out. They need to get creative and make a new game thats insane like that to get their feet off the ground.

  • Noijo

    Posted Jan 28, 2006 9:54 pm PT

    I can't blame Barbara Kaczynski one bit for her departure from Take Two. That is a lot of pressure to put a company under and I am quite sure the 'Hot Coffee Mod' was not revealed to the publisher. This has become a game the programmers / artists play to get their name in the game instead of just the back credits that most don't even look at ever.

  • Noijo

    Posted Jan 28, 2006 9:52 pm PT

    I agree that this is just a small set back for the company, but more so, it might to be a huge set back for Rockstar Games, the developers of Grand Theft Auto series of games. What publisher is going to want to take that chance on them again after the stunts they've pulled with their games. With the huge failures in the PC market (games being axed before shipping) there is a lot of money not being recouped by the publishers and this money needs to be made up somewhere.

    Thankfully there are the console markets that are outpacing the PC market by quite a bit, and this are the studios that are seeing the money to develop games.

    While I have nothing against Rockstar Games, I do have to question their morals.

  • LordOfMidnight

    Posted Jan 26, 2006 11:37 am PT

    Uh-oh...

  • sigler00

    Posted Jan 26, 2006 10:49 am PT

    This could be sign of things to come, the makers of the great GTA series finally has chinks in their armor. Either they get their act together or their future products will suffer.

  • mrimkeit

    Posted Jan 26, 2006 10:28 am PT

    Hard time my ass. Take-Two has only some minor problems that every major company in the world of business goes through. It's not like they are like Acclaim or something. You watch, GTA4 for PS3 is going to come out and they will be RICH AS HELL again. Their stock will sky rocket and they will be the poster Golden Child of the video game industry. They are just between major releases.

  • frankeyser

    Posted Jan 26, 2006 8:55 am PT

    i say hey stay dirty. any publicity is good publicity.

  • morenowagainftw

    Posted Jan 26, 2006 8:35 am PT

    I wonder if Take-Two goes out of buisness if another company will swipe up the rights to GTA, and how well they would do it. Other games have changed hands from company to company before with varying results. I know they haven't said they're going out of buisness, but I've just heard so much bad news from Take-Two lately, I have to wonder.

  • jaefrmbk2k

    Posted Jan 26, 2006 7:38 am PT

    gimme one more GTA then Take-Two can go out of business with out too many tears

  • arjnav

    Posted Jan 26, 2006 7:23 am PT

    This all sounds pretty grim. But I'm wondering how this will affect gamers in general.

  • chrisdojo

    Posted Jan 26, 2006 6:33 am PT

    take 2 can drop off the face of this planet for all i care.

  • Donkeljohn Site moderator

    Posted Jan 26, 2006 5:48 am PT

    Take2 has gotten the one-two this week. Their HQ burns, a board member departs, and their annual earnings report: less than stellar.

  • Lauryn2000

    Posted Jan 26, 2006 4:17 am PT

    Things that make you go hmmmmmmmmmmm??
    Their stock might drop a bit from this news,mmmm.
    Time to run out and go buy some Take-Two stock!!

  • stewiegriffin78

    Posted Jan 26, 2006 4:03 am PT

    Well, I never liked Take-Two bc I don't like GTA. I feel kind of sorry for them, though....

  • jakeboudville

    Posted Jan 26, 2006 12:18 am PT

    interesting news

  • Sun2Devil

    Posted Jan 26, 2006 12:00 am PT

    I wonder if she has a brother named Ted...jk:p spelling is probably different anyways

    Seriously tho, it sounds like its a good time to buy some company stock!

  • i_love_my_ds

    Posted Jan 25, 2006 8:50 pm PT

    sounds like San Andreas brought more problems to Take-Two than benefits. i know it wont go bankrupt, but it looks as though its having a really hard time

  • Sagacious_Tien

    Posted Jan 25, 2006 7:53 pm PT

    Things really aren't looking up for Take Two at the moment. How long do you think before Jack Thompson seeks out our departed Director?

  • Viquist

    Posted Jan 25, 2006 7:46 pm PT

    Yeah... not good at all... sad day too - they could have been really great if they hadn't of screwed up so bad this last year... they will have to do a lot to have a "respectable" image again (or as respectable as they could have been with some of the things alluded to in their games.

  • Snoop_trizzle

    Posted Jan 25, 2006 7:46 pm PT

    Whoa Nelly

  • megamanxzero35

    Posted Jan 25, 2006 7:07 pm PT

    the title it showed on gamefaqs was "Take-Two posts annual report as board member". major confusion on my part. i thought that they posted their budget on the gamespot forums at first. then read the FULL title here

  • NeoJedi

    Posted Jan 25, 2006 6:42 pm PT

    Hmmm... Things are not looking up at all for Take-Two, are they?

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