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Rockstar Games

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Rockstar Games, Inc.
Company typeSubsidiary
IndustryVideo game industry
PredecessorBMG Interactive Entertainment
FoundedDecember 1998; 26 years ago (1998-12)
Founders
Headquarters
New York City, New York
,
U.S.
Key people
ParentTake-Two Interactive
SubsidiariesList
Websiterockstargames.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][5] Donovan left the company in January 2007, following a four-month leave of absence.[6] He was replaced by former Capcom managing director, Gary Dale.[7]

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.[8]

As of February 2014, Rockstar Games titles have shipped more than 250 million copies,[9] the largest franchise being the Grand Theft Auto series which alone has shipments of at least 250 million as of November 2016.[10] Grand Theft Auto V shipped the highest number of units (at least 75 million copies) within series history and became one of the best selling video games of all time.[11][12]

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.[13]

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."[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

Title Release year(s) Developer(s)
Grand Theft Auto series 1999–2013
Monster Truck Madness 64 1999 Edge of Reality
Thrasher Presents Skate and Destroy 1999 Z-Axis Games
Earthworm Jim 3D (Nintendo 64, NA) 1999 VIS Entertainment
Wild Metal Country (Dreamcast) 2000/2003 DMA Design
Smuggler's Run series 2000–2002
Midnight Club series 2000–2008
  • Rockstar San Diego[b]
  • Rebellion Developments (GBA version of Street Racing)
  • Rockstar London (L.A. Remix)
Austin Powers: Oh, Behave! & Austin Powers: Welcome to My Underground Lair! 2000 Tarantula Studios
The Italian Job (PlayStation) 2001 Pixelogic
Oni (PlayStation 2) 2001 Bungie Software
State of Emergency (PlayStation 2, Xbox) 2002 VIS Entertainment
Max Payne series 2001–2012
Manhunt series 2003–2007
  • Rockstar North (Manhunt)
  • Rockstar London (Manhunt 2)
Red Dead series 2004–2018
  • Rockstar San Diego (Red Dead Redemption)
  • Rockstar Studios (Red Dead Redemption 2)
The Warriors 2005 Rockstar Toronto
Bully 2006 Rockstar Vancouver
Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis 2006 Rockstar San Diego
Beaterator 2009 Rockstar Leeds
L.A. Noire 2011 Team Bondi
Agent TBA Rockstar North

Films produced or released

Title Year Genre
GTA 2: The Movie 1999 Crime drama
The Football Factory 2004 Drama
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas – The Introduction 2004 Crime drama
Sunday Driver 2005 Documentary
Red Dead Redemption: The Man from Blackwater 2010 Western drama

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

Main article: Rockstar Advanced Game Engine

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[d] and Wii systems.

Social Club

Main article: Rockstar Games Social Club

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

Notes

  1. ^ Until 2001 as DMA Design.
  2. ^ Until 2003 as Angel Studios.
  3. ^ Rockstar Studios is a collaborative effort between Rockstar Vancouver, Rockstar London, Rockstar Toronto, Rockstar New England, Rockstar San Diego, Rockstar Leeds, and Rockstar North.
  4. ^ The OSX version of Max Payne 3 uses TransGaming's Cider compatibility layer and does not run natively on OSX.

References

  1. ^ a b "ROCKSTAR GAMES: Multimedia Designers". Archived from the original on September 27, 2016. Retrieved January 22, 2017. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  2. ^ "Sam Houser: His-Story". Develop. August 15, 2008. Archived from the original on December 20, 2016. Retrieved March 17, 2016. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  3. ^ "GTA, Rockstar co-founding brothers squeeze into Britain's 1,000 richest people list with £90 million". GameSpot. Archived from the original on July 10, 2017. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  4. ^ Avery, Laura (2005). "Newsmakers: the people behind today's headlines: 2004 cumulation". Gale Research. p. 212. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
  5. ^ http://www.playboy.com/articles/grand-theft-auto-sam-houser-interview
  6. ^ Sinclair, Brendan (January 12, 2007). "Terry Donovan leaves Rockstar". GameSpot. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on April 16, 2016. Retrieved February 14, 2016. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  7. ^ "Capcom exec leaves to join Rockstar". GameSpot. Archived from the original on June 22, 2017. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  8. ^ "Rockstar Studios Information". Rockstar Universe. Archived from the original on December 16, 2014. Retrieved December 11, 2014. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  9. ^ "Rockstar titles have now shipped 250 million copies to date". GameSpot. February 4, 2014. Archived from the original on February 7, 2014. Retrieved February 7, 2014. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  10. ^ Cragg, Oliver (November 3, 2016). "Grand Theft Auto life-time sales hit 250 million, GTA 5 and GTA Online ships 70 million units". International Business Times UK. Archived from the original on February 7, 2017. Retrieved February 6, 2017. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  11. ^ Tassi, Paul. "Here Are The Five Best-Selling Video Games Of All Time". Forbes. Archived from the original on February 7, 2017. Retrieved February 6, 2017. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  12. ^ Macy, Seth G. (February 7, 2017). "Grand Theft Auto 5 Has Now Sold-In 75 Million Copies". IGN. Archived from the original on February 8, 2017. Retrieved February 8, 2017. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  13. ^ Ryan.p (May 18, 2012). "Gaming Gods: Dan and Sam Houser". The Gamer's Hub. Archived from the original on August 19, 2017. Retrieved March 19, 2013. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  14. ^ Ivan, Tom. "Rockstar 'deliberately avoiding' FPS genre". ComputerAndVideoGames. Archived from the original on October 29, 2011. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  15. ^ Purchese, Robert (October 26, 2009). "Rockstar sponsors Movember charity". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on February 4, 2017. Retrieved February 3, 2017. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  16. ^ "Rockstar offers game appearance prize for charity". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on February 4, 2017. Retrieved February 3, 2017. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  17. ^ "Rockstar North | Sick Kids Save Point". sickkidssavepoint.com. Archived from the original on February 4, 2017. Retrieved February 3, 2017. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  18. ^ "Rockstar Games on Twitter". Twitter. Archived from the original on February 22, 2017. Retrieved February 3, 2017. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  19. ^ "Rockstar Acquires Mad Doc Software". RockstarWatch. Archived from the original on April 8, 2008. Retrieved April 4, 2008. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  20. ^ "Take-Two Interactive Buys DMA Design for $11m". Computergram International. September 30, 1999. Archived from the original on February 23, 2016. Retrieved September 18, 2015. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  21. ^ "Rockstar Vancouver merges with Rockstar Toronto and expands". RockstarWatch. July 9, 2012. Archived from the original on July 17, 2012. Retrieved July 9, 2012. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  22. ^ Horneman, Jurie (May 11, 2006). "Rockstar Vienna closes its doors". Intelligent Artifice. Archived from the original on May 28, 2007. Retrieved April 21, 2007. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
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