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Type | Subsidiary |
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Industry | Video games |
Predecessor | BMG Interactive |
Founded | December 1998 |
Founders |
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Headquarters | , US |
Key people |
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Products | |
Number of employees | >2,000 (2018) |
Parent | Take-Two Interactive |
Subsidiaries | See § Studios |
Website | rockstargames.com |
Rockstar Games, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in New York City. The company was established in December 1998 as a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive, using the assets Take-Two had previously acquired from BMG Interactive. Founding members of the company were Terry Donovan, Gary Foreman, Dan and Sam Houser, and Jamie King, who worked for Take-Two at the time, and of which the Houser brothers were previously executives at BMG Interactive. Sam Houser heads the studio as president. [2]
Since 1999, several companies acquired by or established under Take-Two have become part of Rockstar Games, such as Rockstar Canada (later renamed Rockstar Toronto) becoming the first one in 1999, and Rockstar Dundee the most recent in 2020. All companies organized under Rockstar Games bear the "Rockstar" name and logo. In this context, Rockstar Games is sometimes also referred to as Rockstar New York, Rockstar NY or Rockstar NYC. Rockstar Games also sports a motion capture studio in Bethpage, New York. [2]
Rockstar Games predominantly publishes games in the action-adventure genre, while racing games also saw success for the company. One of such action-adventure game franchises is Grand Theft Auto , which Rockstar Games took over from BMG Interactive, which published the series' original 1997 entry. The most recent main game in the series, Grand Theft Auto V , has sold over 170 million copies since its release in September 2013, making it the second-best-selling video game of all time. Other popular franchises published by Rockstar Games are Red Dead , Midnight Club , Max Payne , and Manhunt . [3]
On March 12, 1998, Take-Two Interactive announced its acquisition of the assets of dormant British video game publisher BMG Interactive from BMG Entertainment (a unit of Bertelsmann). In exchange, Take-Two was to issue 1.85 million shares (around 16%) of its common stock to BMG Entertainment. [4] [5] Through this acquisition, Take-Two obtained several of BMG Interactive's former intellectual properties, including DMA Design's Grand Theft Auto and Space Station Silicon Valley . [6] [7] The deal was announced to have closed on March 25. [8] Three BMG Interactive executives—Dan Houser, Sam Houser, and Jamie King—as well as Gary Foreman of BMG Interactive and Terry Donovan of BMG Entertainment's Arista Records record label, subsequently moved to New York City to work for Take-Two Interactive. [6] [9] [10] In a restructuring announced that April, Sam Houser was appointed as Take-Two's "vice president of worldwide product development". [11] In December 1998, the Houser brothers, Donovan and King established Rockstar Games as the "high-end" publishing label of Take-Two. [6] [12] [13] [14] The formation was formally announced on January 22, 1999. [15]
In January 2007, Take-Two announced that Donovan, until then managing director for Rockstar Games, had left the company following a four-month leave of absence. [16] He was succeeded by Gary Dale, who became chief operating officer. [17] Dale previously worked with the Houser brothers and King at BMG Interactive, but left the company when it was acquired by Take-Two Interactive, and joined Capcom's European operations as managing director in 2003. [18] [19]
As of February 2014, Rockstar Games titles have shipped more than 250 million copies, [20] the largest franchise being the Grand Theft Auto series, which alone has shipments of at least 250 million as of November 2016. [21] Grand Theft Auto V shipped the highest number of units within the series' and the company's history, with over 170 million copies, [22] making it the second best-selling video game of all time. [23]
At the 10th British Academy Games Awards in March 2014, Rockstar Games was honored with the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award for "creating intricately layered interactive worlds that have kept the company at the forefront of the gaming industry for over a decade, both critically and commercially". [24] [25] Jennifer Kolbe, who started at the front desk of Take-Two, acts as Rockstar Games' head of publishing and oversees all development studios. [2] [26] Simon Ramsey is the company's head of PR and communications. [26]
In May 2019, Rockstar Games announced that they were acquiring Dhruva Interactive from Starbreeze Studios for $7.9 million, with the sale being finalized later that month and the Dhruva team merged into Rockstar India. [27] [28]
In September 2019, Rockstar Games announced that they had released their own game launcher, a digital distribution, digital rights management, multiplayer and communications service. [29] After having taken an extended break following the release of Red Dead Redemption 2 in early 2019, Dan Houser left Rockstar Games on March 11, 2020. [30]
The company acquired the Scottish studio Ruffian Games in October 2020, rebranding the studio as Rockstar Dundee. [31]
In September 2022, Rockstar was the target of a data breach in which 90 videos from the development of the upcoming Grand Theft Auto game were leaked. [32] [33] Rockstar described the leak as a "network intrusion", and noted that it was "extremely disappointed" by the manner in which the game was first demonstrated, but that it did not anticipate long-term effects on development. [34]
In October 2011, Dan Houser told Famitsu that Rockstar Games was intentionally avoiding developing games in the first-person shooter genre, because "it is in our DNA to avoid doing what other companies are doing ... the goalpoint of Rockstar is to have the players really feel what we're trying to do." [35] [36] Houser went on to say "Our games up to now have been different from any genre that existed at the time; we 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. ... If we make the sort of games we want to play, then we believe people are going to buy them." [37]
The company has been involved with charitable work ranging from supporting Movember and offering appearances in games as a raffle prize, to charity live streams. [38] [39]
In 1999, Donovan and Sam Houser cooperated with John Davis to establish the Rockstar Loft club night. Davis had co-founded and been the promoter for Body & Soul, a "no-guestlist, no velvet rope party" held weekly at Tribeca's Club Vinyl. When Rockstar Games' founder originally arrived in New York City, former DJ Donovan was particularly impressed with Body & Soul, and they became close with the club night's team, including Davis and its other founder, DJ François K. Davis had sought to establish further such events, while Donovan and Houser wanted to get publicity for the young Rockstar Games, thus they established Rockstar Loft. According to Donovan, the event was to serve as an alternative those that were overly expensive or had attendees "bulldozed by security". He precluded video game installations at the venue to focus on the music and highlight the artists. [40]
As it could not afford frequent television advertisements, Rockstar Games resorted to guerrilla marketing teams distributing fly posters and stickers. Tickets for Rockstar Loft were not sold in advance. Instead, potential guests were to call a phone number and face seven questions regarding their personality. If answered to the liking of the operator, the caller would receive their entry ticket in the mail. [40] The first Rockstar Loft was held in western Chelsea, Manhattan, on October 30, 1999, with Andi Hanley (a regular of Body & Soul), Bob Sinclar, and Dimitri from Paris as headlining DJs. [40] [41] Thereafter, it was held "every few months", with one happening on February 19, 2000. [40] [42] Later that year, Rockstar Loft was wound down. [40]
Kirk Ewing—a friend of the Houser brothers who had worked with Rockstar Games on State of Emergency —stated that, around the release of Grand Theft Auto III in 2001, Rockstar Games had been offered $5 million for a film based on the Grand Theft Auto franchise. He had received a phone call from a producer in Los Angeles requesting the rights for a film to be directed by Tony Scott of Top Gun and starring rapper Eminem. When he relayed this proposal to Sam Houser, Houser said that he was not interested. [43] In 2004, Rockstar Games produced the sports drama film The Football Factory . Based on the book of the same name by John King, the film revolves around organized football hooliganism in the United Kingdom. [44] The company also produced Sunday Driver, a documentary about the Majestics Lowrider Club in Compton, California, and The Introduction, an animated film that details the events leading up to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas . Both were bundled with the game's special edition released in 2005. [45]
In May 2021, Rockstar Games launched the record label CircoLoco Records in collaboration with Circoloco, an Ibiza-based dance party. The collaboration grew from a friendship between Sam Houser and Circoloco's promoter, Antonio Carbonaro. According to Nick Benedetti, the party's manager, Rockstar Games and Circoloco intended to "contribute something new and meaningful" to the dance music scene, which had faced hardships because of the lockdowns brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. [46] CircoLoco Records' first release, Monday Dreamin', was released as a series of extended plays starting in June 2021. [40] [46]
Outside of its New York City headquarters, Rockstar Games operates nine subsidiary studios. [47] [48] All studios use the Rockstar Games logo with individual colors. [49] As of 2018, the company employs more than 2,000 people across all offices. [50] The studios frequently collaborate and are sometimes collectively credited as Rockstar Studios, as is the case in Max Payne 3 and Red Dead Redemption 2 . [47] [51]
Logo | Name | Location | Founded | Acquired | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
![]() | Rockstar Dundee | Dundee, Scotland | 2008 | 2020 | |
![]() | Rockstar India | Bangalore, India | 2016 | — | |
![]() | Rockstar Leeds | Leeds, England | 1997 | 2004 | Developer of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars , Liberty City Stories , and Vice City Stories |
![]() | Rockstar Lincoln | Lincoln, England | 1992 | 2002 | Handles localization and quality assurance |
![]() | Rockstar London | London, England | 2005 | — | Developer of Manhunt 2 and Midnight Club: L.A. Remix |
![]() | Rockstar New England | Andover, Massachusetts, US | 1999 | 2008 | Developer of Bully: Scholarship Edition |
![]() | Rockstar North | Edinburgh, Scotland | 1987 | 2002 | Developer of the Grand Theft Auto series and Manhunt |
![]() | Rockstar San Diego | Carlsbad, California, US | 1984 | 2002 | Developer of the Red Dead , Smuggler's Run , and Midnight Club series |
![]() | Rockstar Toronto | Oakville, Ontario, Canada | Early 1980s | 1999 | Developer of The Warriors and several Windows ports |
Logo | Name | Location | Founded | Acquired | Closed | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
![]() | Rockstar Vancouver | Vancouver, Canada | 1998 | 2002 | 2012 | Developer of Bully and Max Payne 3 ; merged into Rockstar Toronto in July 2012. |
![]() | Rockstar Vienna | Vienna, Austria | 1993 | 2003 | 2006 | Developer of several Xbox ports; closed down in May 2006 |
Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE) is a game engine developed by the Rockstar San Diego-internal RAGE Technology Group, created to facilitate game development on all platforms since 2006. [52]
Rockstar Games Social Club is an online gaming service created by Rockstar Games for authentication and multiplayer applications within their games.
Rockstar Games released its own games launcher for Windows on September 17, 2019. The launcher integrates with the user's Social Club account, allowing them to download and buy games that they have previously purchased through Rockstar's store, as well as launch Rockstar games available from other services, like Steam, from the launcher. [53]
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is a 2002 action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It is the fourth main entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, following 2001's Grand Theft Auto III, and the sixth instalment overall. Set in 1986 within the fictional Vice City, the single-player story follows mobster Tommy Vercetti's rise to power after being released from prison and becoming caught up in an ambushed drug deal. While seeking out those responsible, he slowly builds a criminal empire by seizing power from other criminal organisations in the city.
Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in New York City and founded by Ryan Brant in September 1993.
Grand Theft Auto III is a 2001 action-adventure game developed by DMA Design and published by Rockstar Games. It is the third main entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, following 1999's Grand Theft Auto 2, and the fifth instalment overall. Set within the fictional Liberty City, the story follows Claude, a silent protagonist who, after being betrayed and left for dead by his girlfriend during a robbery, embarks on a quest for revenge that leads him to become entangled in a world of crime, drugs, gang warfare, and corruption. The game is played from a third-person perspective and its world is navigated on foot or by vehicle. Its open world design lets players freely roam Liberty City, consisting of three main areas.
Rockstar North Limited is a British video game development company and a studio of Rockstar Games based in Edinburgh. The company was founded as DMA Design in Dundee in 1987 by David Jones, soon hiring former classmates Mike Dailly, Russell Kay, and Steve Hammond. During its early years, DMA Design was backed by its publisher Psygnosis, primarily focusing on Amiga, Atari ST and Commodore 64 games. During this time, they created successful shooters such as Menace, and Blood Money, but soon turned to platform games after the release of Lemmings in 1991, which was an international success and led to several sequels and spin-offs. After developing Unirally for Nintendo, DMA Design was set to become one of their main second-party developers, but this partnership ended after Nintendo's disapproval of Body Harvest.
Grand Theft Auto (GTA) is a series of action-adventure games created by David Jones and Mike Dailly. Later titles were developed under the oversight of brothers Dan and Sam Houser, Leslie Benzies and Aaron Garbut. It is primarily developed by British development house Rockstar North, and published by its parent company, Rockstar Games. The name of the series references the term "grand theft auto", used in the United States for motor vehicle theft.
Rockstar Leeds Limited is a British video game developer and a studio of Rockstar Games based in Leeds. Ian J. Bowden, Dave Box, Gordon Hall, and Jason McGann founded the company as Möbius Entertainment in December 1997 after working together at the studio Hookstone. Möbius worked with SCi on two games: Alfred's Adventure, a remake of the Twilight-developed Alfred Chicken, and the cancelled Titanium Angels, an adaptation of Thunderbirds. From 2001 on, the studio created Game Boy Advance games for several publishers, including multiple for The 3DO Company and Max Payne for Rockstar Games.
Rockstar Games Toronto ULC is a Canadian video game developer and a studio of Rockstar Games based in Oakville, Ontario. The company was established as Imagexcel in the early 1980s and developed more than fifteen games under that name, including Quarantine, which was published by GameTek in 1994. The publisher bought the studio's assets through its Alternative Reality Technologies subsidiary in March 1995 and then sold Alternative Reality Technologies to Take-Two Interactive in July 1997. The studio became part of Take-Two's Rockstar Games label as Rockstar Canada in 1999 and was renamed Rockstar Toronto in 2002 when Take-Two acquired Rockstar Vancouver. Under Rockstar Games, the studio developed the 2005 game The Warriors, based on the 1979 film of the same name, as well as several ports, including the Windows versions of Grand Theft Auto IV, Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City, Max Payne 3, and Grand Theft Auto V. In July 2012, Rockstar Vancouver was merged into Rockstar Toronto, which then moved into larger offices.
Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories is a 2005 action-adventure game developed in a collaboration between Rockstar Leeds and Rockstar North, and published by Rockstar Games. The ninth installment in the Grand Theft Auto series, it was initially released as a PlayStation Portable exclusive in October 2005. A port for the PlayStation 2 was later released in June 2006. At the time of release, the recommended retail price of the PS2 port was around half the price of the PSP version, because the PS2 version does not feature the custom soundtrack ripping capability of the PSP version. Ports for iOS, Android and Fire OS devices were also released in December 2015, February 2016, and March 2016, respectively.
"Hot Coffee" is the unofficial name for a minigame in the 2004 action-adventure video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas by Rockstar Games. While it was not playable in the official game release, the modding community discovered hidden code that, when enabled, allows protagonist Carl "CJ" Johnson to have animated sexual intercourse with his in-game girlfriend.
Grand Theft Auto IV is a 2008 action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It is the sixth main entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, following 2004's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and the eleventh instalment overall. Set within the fictional Liberty City, based on New York City, the single-player story follows Eastern European war veteran Niko Bellic and his attempts to escape his past while under pressure from high-profile criminals. The open world design lets players freely roam Liberty City, consisting of three main islands, and the neighbouring state of Alderney, which is based on New Jersey.
Sam Houser is a British video game producer. He is the co-founder and president of Rockstar Games and one of the creative driving forces behind the games in the Grand Theft Auto franchise, being producer since the third game.
Daniel Houser is an English video game producer, writer, and voice actor, as well as the co-founder and former vice president of creativity for Rockstar Games. As well as producing video games, Houser was the head writer for Rockstar Games, being the lead for Bully (2006), Red Dead Redemption (2010) and Max Payne 3 (2012). He has also written, or co-written, almost all of the titles in the Grand Theft Auto series.
Grand Theft Auto Mission Pack #1: London 1969 is an expansion pack for the 1997 action-adventure game Grand Theft Auto, developed by Rockstar Canada and published by Rockstar Games. It was released for personal computers and the PlayStation in April 1999. The expansion adheres to the same gameplay mechanics of the main game and takes place in a fictionalised version of London during the 1960s. Like in the main game, players assume the role of a criminal who works for several London-based criminal syndicates, and complete levels by achieving a set score, within an open-world environment that allows them to do whatever they wish alongside jobs to achieve their goal.
Leslie Peter Benzies is a Scottish video game producer and the former president of Rockstar North, a subsidiary of Rockstar Games. He was the lead developer on the Grand Theft Auto series, taking responsibility from Grand Theft Auto III to Grand Theft Auto V. Benzies left Rockstar in 2016, and was in a lawsuit with its parent company, Take-Two Interactive, over unpaid royalties from April 2016 to February 2019.
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is a 2009 action-adventure game developed by Rockstar Leeds in conjunction with Rockstar North, and published by Rockstar Games. The game was released for the Nintendo DS in March 2009, PlayStation Portable in October 2009, iOS in January 2010, and Android and Fire OS devices in December 2014. It is the thirteenth game in the Grand Theft Auto series and a follow-up to Grand Theft Auto IV, and is the first instalment to be released for handheld consoles since 2006's Vice City Stories. Set within modern-day Liberty City, the single-player story follows young Triad member Huang Lee and his efforts to recover a sword gifted by his late father after it is stolen from him, while inadvertently becoming caught in a power struggle amongst Liberty City's Triads.
Grand Theft Auto is an action-adventure video game developed by DMA Design and published by BMG Interactive. It is the first title of the Grand Theft Auto series and was released in November 1997 for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows, in December 1997 for the PlayStation and in October 1999 for the Game Boy Color. The game's narrative follows a criminal who climbs in status within the criminal underworld across three fictional cities, inspired by real-life locations. The gameplay is presented from a top-down perspective and takes place within an open-world environment in which the player is not required to perform missions, although they are necessary to progress through the levels.
Grand Theft Auto V is a 2013 action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It is the seventh main entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, following 2008's Grand Theft Auto IV, and the fifteenth instalment overall. Set within the fictional state of San Andreas, based on Southern California, the single-player story follows three protagonists—retired bank robber Michael De Santa, street gangster Franklin Clinton, and drug dealer and gunrunner Trevor Philips—and their attempts to commit heists while under pressure from a corrupt government agency and powerful criminals. The open world design lets players freely roam San Andreas' open countryside and the fictional city of Los Santos, based on Los Angeles.
A team of approximately 1,000 people developed Grand Theft Auto V over several years. Rockstar Games released the action-adventure game in September 2013 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, in November 2014 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, in April 2015 for Microsoft Windows, and in March 2022 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. The first main Grand Theft Auto series entry since Grand Theft Auto IV, its development was led by Rockstar North's core 360-person team, who collaborated with several other international Rockstar studios. The team considered the game a spiritual successor to many of their previous projects like Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3. After its unexpected announcement in 2011, the game was fervently promoted with press showings, cinematic trailers, viral marketing strategies and special editions. Its release date, though subject to several delays, was widely anticipated.
Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition is a 2021 compilation of three action-adventure games in the Grand Theft Auto series: Grand Theft Auto III (2001), Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002), and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004). It was developed by Grove Street Games and published by Rockstar Games. All three games are remastered, with visual enhancements and gameplay upgrades. The games feature different protagonists and locations within the same continuity. Grand Theft Auto III follows silent protagonist Claude in Liberty City; Vice City, set in 1986, features ex-mobster Tommy Vercetti in the titular Vice City; and San Andreas, set in 1992, follows gangster Carl "CJ" Johnson within the fictional state of San Andreas.
An untitled Grand Theft Auto game is in development by Rockstar Games. It is due to be the eighth main Grand Theft Auto game, following Grand Theft Auto V (2013), and the sixteenth instalment overall. Following years of speculation and leaks, Rockstar confirmed in February 2022 that the game is in development. Footage from unfinished versions leaked online in September in what was described as one of the biggest leaks in the history of the video game industry.