Rockstar Games

Rockstar Games, Inc.

Type	Subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive
Industry	Video games
Predecessor	BMG Interactive
Founded	1998 (1998)
Headquarters	New York City, New York, United States
Coordinates	40°43′33″N 73°59′45″W / 40.725736°N 73.995968°W / 40.725736; -73.995968Coordinates: 40°43′33″N 73°59′45″W / 40.725736°N 73.995968°W / 40.725736; -73.995968
Key people	Dan Houser (vice president) Sam Houser (president)
Number of employees	900 (structure)[1]
Parent	Take-Two Interactive
Website	www.rockstargames.com

Rockstar Games is a multinational video game developer and publisher known for multi-million-selling games such as Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead, Midnight Club, Bully, The Warriors, Manhunt and Max Payne, as well as the use of open world, free roaming settings in their games.

Based in New York City, it is owned by Take-Two Interactive following its purchase of British video game publisher BMG Interactive.^[2] While some of the studios Take-Two Interactive has acquired have been merged into the Rockstar brand, several other recent ones have retained their previous identities and have become part of the company's 2K Games division.

History

The Rockstar Games label was founded in 1998^[3] by the British video game producers Sam Houser, Dan Houser, Terry Donovan, Jamie King and Gary Foreman.^[4][5] Donovan left the company in January 2007, following a four-month leave of absence.^[6]

The main headquarters of Rockstar Games (commonly referred to as Rockstar NYC)^[7] is located on Broadway in the NoHo neighborhood of New York City, part of the Take-Two Interactive offices. It is home to the marketing, public relations and product development departments.^[8]

As of February 2014, Rockstar Games titles have shipped more than 250 million copies, the largest franchise being the Grand Theft Auto series which alone has shipments of at least 220 million.^[9] In March 2014, Rockstar Games received the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award at the British Academy Video Games Awards.

Company philosophy

In October 2011, Rockstar creative vice-president Dan Houser told Famitsu that Rockstar was intentionally avoiding developing in the first-person shooter genre. "We're deliberately avoiding that right now", he said, according to a 1UP.com translation. "It's in our DNA to avoid doing what other companies are doing. I suppose you could say that Max Payne 3 is something close to an FPS, but there are really unique aspects to the setting and gameplay there, too, not just in the story. You have to have originality in your games; you have to have some kind of interesting message. You could say that the goalpoint of Rockstar is to have the players really feel what we're trying to do". Houser went on to say that Rockstar has "made new genres by ourselves with games like the GTA series. We didn't rely on testimonials in a business textbook to do what we've done. I think we succeeded precisely because we didn't concentrate on profit... If we make the sort of games we want to play, then we believe people are going to buy them."^[10]

Rockstar has since released an enhanced remake of Grand Theft Auto V for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, which can be fully played from the first-person perspective.^[11] This was made possible in part with higher quality firearm visuals, hindered audio-visual stimuli due to headgear, and additional animations - helping the game achieve aesthetic parity with other first-person shooters.^[11]

Games developed

External developers and publisher

• Capcom had early development in Red Dead Revolver and previously owned the Japanese distribution rights to the Grand Theft Auto franchise
• Bungie West developed the game Oni for Windows and Macintosh, which was then ported by Rockstar to the PS2 and published by them. Before Bungie was bought by Microsoft, their breakthrough product, Halo, was planned for release on video game consoles with Rockstar as publisher ^[12]
• Remedy Entertainment developed Max Payne and Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
• Team Bondi an Australian independent gaming developer who developed L.A. Noire with Rockstar
• Edge of Reality developed Monster Truck Madness 64, first published by Microsoft and later by Rockstar
• Rockstar was the publisher of The Italian Job video game
• Wild Metal Country published by Gremlin Interactive and later by Rockstar
• Z-Axis developed Thrasher presents Skate and Destroy and Rockstar published it
• VIS Entertainment in collaboration with Dubtitled Entertainment is known for developing the first State of Emergency game which was Rockstar published
• Digital Eclipse Software collaborated with Rockstar North while developing Grand Theft Auto Advance.
• War Drum Studios ported a number of Rockstar titles to mobile platforms such as Grand Theft Auto III,^[13] Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars and Max Payne.^[14] They also ported Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas to the Xbox 360.
• Image Metrics has done most of the facial animation in many of Rockstar's games.

Films

In 2011, Rockstar Games trademarked Rockstar Films.^[15]

Structure

Current studios

Logo	Name	Location	Years as Rockstar division	Notes
	Rockstar North	Edinburgh, Scotland	1999–present	Founded in 1988 as DMA Design and subsequently acquired in 1999,[16] they are famous for the Grand Theft Auto, and Manhunt franchises, as well as the original Lemmings games.
	Rockstar San Diego	Carlsbad, California	2003–present	As part of Rockstar they developed the RAGE engine, the Midnight Club series, Red Dead Revolver and Red Dead Redemption.
	Rockstar Toronto	Oakville, Ontario	1999–present	Their most well-known work is The Warriors, an adaptation of the cult classic film and the PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV and Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City.
	Rockstar Leeds	Leeds, England	2004–present	They created Liberty City Stories, Vice City Stories, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, the music game Beaterator and Max Payne for the Game Boy Advance. Most recent work was the Microsoft Windows version of L.A. Noire.
	Rockstar Lincoln	Lincoln, England	1999–present	Quality assurance and localisation, previously known as Tarantula Studios.
	Rockstar London	London, England	2005–present	Formed in November 2005 for the development of Manhunt 2 after Rockstar Vienna closed. Developed the portable adaptation of Midnight Club: Los Angeles.
	Rockstar New England	Andover, Massachusetts	2008–present	Responsible for the Wii, Xbox 360, PC ports of Bully.[17]

Former studios

Logo	Name	Location	Years as Rockstar division	Notes
	Rockstar Vancouver	Vancouver, British Columbia	2002–2012	Merged with Rockstar Toronto in 2012. Responsible for the PlayStation 2 title Bully and the third game in the Max Payne series, Max Payne 3. [18]
	Rockstar Japan	Tokyo, Japan	2005	Formally a label created between Rockstar and Capcom, who previously held exclusive distribution rights to the Grand Theft Auto series in Japan.
	Rockstar Vienna	Vienna, Austria	2003–2006	They ported the Max Payne series to consoles, and created some of Manhunt 2 before being closed down.[19]

Technology

RAGE

Rockstar Games have developed their own game engine called the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE) to facilitate game development on the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Windows, Mac^{[lower-alpha 1]} and Wii systems.

Social Club

The Rockstar Games Social Club is an online gaming service created by Rockstar for use with their games.

References

Notes

Footnotes

External links

• Official website