Came across an interesting read (NeoGAF, I choose you) from a former employee of Rockstar.

Dedicated readers, like you yourself may one day become, may remember my earlier suppositions of Take-Two’s fall from financial grace. It appears that the reality was much less exciting: it was simply the standard tale of the corporate world, which is just a shitty place to work.

the Take 2 offices were a dump. There was no space to interview anyone. There was really not enough space to walk. What there was was a series of metal tables pushed up against each other in several rows throughout a single window-less room. They didn’t believe in cubes – ok, I understand that. But they didn’t apparently believe in air either. Or cleanliness. I’m not always the cleanest guy myself, but the Rockstar offices were just packed with junk – loose papers, electronic equipment, empty boxes, etc. Clutter central.

There was constant micromanagement of even the most minor issues. A splash page announcing the release date for a minor game like Max Payne for the GameBoy Advance would take days to get approved, going back and forth between directors and requiring multitudes of changes. Every project involved at least four different approvals – Scott, Jenny Gross, Dan Houser, and Terry Donovan. If any one of them requested a change, the project would be sent back. Often they didn’t communicate and didn’t agree with each other, so we’d do one change only to have someone else up the chain ask us to change it back. Then an argument would inevitably ensue. And when I say “argument”, I mean “screaming at the top of your lungs and throwing objects around the office” type of argument. This was not a relaxing environment in which to work.

If you’re interested at all in the bad boy of the videogame industry, give this one a read.