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Take-Two Shaken but Undeterred

Priya Ganapati

While CEO Paul Eibeler and the board of directors were being voted out Thursday, the company debuted the trailer for its much-awaited game, Grand Theft Auto IV.

Rockstar Games, the development division of Take-Two, offered the first peek into the game's look and characters on its Web site.

Take-Two plans to release the game for Sony's(SNE Quote) PlayStation 3 console and Microsoft's(MSFT Quote) Xbox 360 on Oct. 16 in the U.S. and Oct. 19 in Europe.

Shares of Take-Two fell 58 cents, or 2.8%, to $20.52 midday Friday. The stock had soared nearly 20% since the news of the dissident shareholder filing on March 7.

The trailer titled "Things Will Be Different" indicates that Grand Theft Auto IV is likely to be set in Liberty City, a setting that Take-Two has used in an earlier installment of the series.

The Grand Theft Auto series of games has been a huge hit and has sold more than 40 million copies. The franchise also has brought much trouble for Take-Two. The company has drawn extensive criticism for the violence and racy content in the games.

In 2004, Take-Two faced an uproar over a hidden module in its game, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Controversy about the content had Sen. Hillary Clinton calling for legislation limiting sales of video games to minors.

The series also has drawn critics such as Jack Thompson, who has become a major gadfly for the company.

At its annual meeting Thursday, the group of shareholders consisting of Oppenheimer Funds, S.A.C. Capital Management, Tudor Investment, D.E. Shaw Valence Portfolios and ZelnickMedia forced out existing management. Collectively, the group owns about 46% of the company.

The consortium also succeeded in installing Strauss Zelnick, founding partner of ZelnickMedia, as the new chairman of Take-Two.

The Take-Two board of directors now consists of Strauss Zelnick, Ben Feder, Jon J. Moses, Michael Dornemann, Michael James Sheresky and John Levy, who is an incumbent, independent director of Take-Two.

Grover C. Brown, another incumbent, independent director, was also elected as a director at a meeting of the new board of directors held after the stockholders meeting.