Rockstar Games

Rockstar Games, Inc.

Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Video game industry
Predecessor	BMG Interactive Entertainment
Founded	December 1998 (1998-12)
Founders	Sam Houser Dan Houser Terry Donovan Jamie King
Headquarters	New York City, New York, U.S.
Key people	Sam Houser (executive producer) Dan Houser (creative director)
Parent	Take-Two Interactive
Subsidiaries	List
Website	rockstargames.com

Rockstar Games, Inc. (sometimes referred to as Rockstar NYC) is an American video game publisher, best known for their Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead, Midnight Club, Max Payne, and Manhunt series of video games.

Based in New York City, it was formed by Take-Two Interactive in December 1998, as successor to British video game publisher BMG Interactive Entertainment, a division of BMG Entertainment, from Bertelsmann, which was previously acquired.^[1] 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 Take-Two Interactive's 2K Games subsidiary.

History

The Rockstar Games label was founded in December 1998 by Sam Houser, Dan Houser, Terry Donovan, and Jamie King.^[1][2][3][4] Donovan left the company in January 2007, following a four-month leave of absence.^[5] He was replaced by former Capcom managing director, Gary Dale.^[6]

The main headquarters of Rockstar Games are 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.^[7]

As of February 2014, Rockstar Games titles have shipped more than 250 million copies,^[8] the largest franchise being the Grand Theft Auto series which alone has shipments of at least 250 million as of November 2016.^[9] Grand Theft Auto V shipped the highest number of units (at least 75 million copies) within series history and become one of the best selling video games of all time.^[10][11]

In March 2014, Rockstar Games received the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award at the British Academy Video Games Awards.

Company philosophy

Despite their status as creators of Grand Theft Auto and one of the most successful video game franchises of all-time, Sam Houser and his brother Dan have shied away from the spotlight. They have focused on the Rockstar Games brand, rather than any one person getting the credit for the games' success.^[12]

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."^[13]

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.^[14] 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.^[14]

The company has been involved with charitable work ranging from supporting Movember, offering appearances in games as a raffle prize, and charity live streams.^{[15][16][17][18]}

Games published

Films produced or released

Structure

Current subsidiaries

Logo	Name	Location	Years	Notes
	RAGE Technology Group	Carlsbad, California, U.S.	2006–present	Developer of the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine, located at Rockstar San Diego.
	Rockstar India	Bangalore, India	2016–present	Works in conjunction with the Rockstar Dedicated Unit (RDU) at Technicolor India.
	Rockstar International	London, England	2005–present	The publishing headquarters for Rockstar Games in the UK, Europe, Asia, Japan, Africa, Australia and South America, located at Rockstar London.
	Rockstar Leeds	Leeds, England	2004–present	They created Chinatown Wars, Beaterator, Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories. Ported Max Payne to the Game Boy Advance and L.A. Noire to Microsoft Windows.
	Rockstar Lincoln	Lincoln, England	1999–present	Quality assurance and localisation responsible for games testing and translating games developed by Rockstar Games.They also developed Game Boy Color video game Las Vegas Cool Hand.
	Rockstar London	London, England	2005–present	Formed in November 2005 for the development of Manhunt 2. Responsible for the portable adaptation of Midnight Club: Los Angeles.
	Rockstar New England	Andover, Massachusetts, U.S.	2008–present	Responsible for the Wii, Xbox 360, PC ports of Bully.[19]
	Rockstar North	Edinburgh, Scotland	1999–present	Founded in 1987 as DMA Design and subsequently acquired in 1999,[20] they are famous for the Grand Theft Auto, and Manhunt franchises, as well as the original Lemmings games as DMA Design.
	Rockstar San Diego	Carlsbad, California, U.S.	2003–present	As part of Rockstar they developed the RAGE engine, Rockstar's Table Tennis, the Midnight Club series, both Red Dead Revolver and Red Dead Redemption.
	Rockstar Toronto	Oakville, Ontario, Canada	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 Episodes from Liberty City.

Former subsidiaries

Logo	Name	Location	Years	Notes
	Rockstar Vancouver	Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada	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.[21]
	Rockstar Vienna	Vienna, Austria	2003–2006	Ported the Max Payne series to consoles, and created some of Manhunt 2 before being closed down.[22]

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 4]} and Wii systems.

Social Club

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

Notes

References

External links

• Official website