A video game developer is a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large business with employee responsibilities split between individual disciplines, such as programming, design, art, testing, etc. Most game development companies have video game publisher financial and usually marketing support. Self-funded developers are known as independent or indie developers and usually make indie games.
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.
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.
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.
Remedy Entertainment Oyj, trading internationally as Remedy Entertainment Plc, is a Finnish video game developer based in Espoo. Notable games the studio has developed include the first two instalments in the Max Payne franchise, Alan Wake, Quantum Break and Control. Sam Lake, the writer and face model for Max Payne in the original game, has represented the company on numerous occasions.
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 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.
Rockstar San Diego, Inc. is an American video game developer and a studio of Rockstar Games based in Carlsbad, California. The studio is best known for developing the Midnight Club and Red Dead series.
Square Enix Limited is a British subsidiary of the Japanese video game company Square Enix, acting as their European publishing arm. The company formerly owned Tomb Raider, which was in development under CentreGold in 1996, and had acquired Crystal Dynamics in 1998, among numerous other assets, until 2022. Square Enix Limited and fellow group company Square Enix Incorporated shared "Phil" Rogers as CEO and other executives from 2013 to 2022.
Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition is a racing video game developed by Rockstar San Diego and published by Rockstar Games. It is the third installment in the Midnight Club series. Like previous installments in the series, the game is an arcade-style racer and focuses on wild, high-speed racing, rather than realistic physics and driving. The name is derived from a partnership between Rockstar and DUB Magazine, which features heavily in the game in the form of DUB-sponsored races and DUB-customized vehicles as prizes.
Deep Silver is an Austrian video game publisher and a division of Plaion. Eugenio Vitale serves as the director of games development for Deep Silver.
2K is an American video game publisher based in Novato, California. 2K was founded under Take-Two Interactive in January 2005 through the 2K Games and 2K Sports labels, following Take-Two Interactive's acquisition of Visual Concepts that same month. Originally based in New York City, it moved to Novato in 2007. A third label, 2K Play, was added in September 2007. 2K is governed by David Ismailer as president and Phil Dixon as COO. A motion capture studio for 2K is based in Petaluma, California.
Rockstar Productions GmbH was an Austrian video game developer and a studio of Rockstar Games based in Vienna. Peter Baustädter, Niki Laber, and Hannes Seifert founded the studio as Neo Software in January 1993 when they neared the completion of Whale's Voyage. The game led Neo Software to early success, as did 1994's The Clue!, which sold over a million copies, and enabled the company to relocate from Seifert's house in Hirtenberg to Vienna. After Neo Software's Alien Nations sold more than a million copies in 1999, Computec Media acquired a majority stake in the company, seeking it to produce online games. It then sold the studio and several other businesses to Gameplay.com in February 2000, which sold Neo Software to Take-Two Interactive in January 2001 in exchange for a Take-Two subsidiary Gameplay.com had obtained earlier.
Rockstar New England, Inc. is an American video game developer and a studio of Rockstar Games based in Andover, Massachusetts. Ian Lane Davis founded the company as Mad Doc Software in November 1999 after working as technical director for Activision. The studio worked with Activision on Star Trek: Armada before leading the development of its sequel, Star Trek: Armada II. From 2002 on, Mad Doc was the principal developer of the Empire Earth series, developing two games and two expansions. While the successful Empire Earth II landed the company publishing contracts with Rockstar Games and Bethesda Softworks, Empire Earth III was a critical and commercial failure and led to an end for the series. Mad Doc developed Star Trek: Legacy for Bethesda Softworks and Bully: Scholarship Edition for Rockstar Games. After the latter was released in March 2008, Rockstar Games' parent company, Take-Two Interactive, bought Mad Doc and made it part of Rockstar Games as Rockstar New England. Under Rockstar Games, the studio worked on a sequel to Bully until its developers were reallocated to projects like Max Payne 3.
Rockstar Vancouver Inc. was a Canadian video game developer and a studio of Rockstar Games based in Vancouver. The studio is best known for developing Bully (2006).
Rockstar Lincoln Limited is a British video game developer based in Lincoln. It is the quality assurance and localisation studio of Rockstar Games. Steve Marsden and David Cooke founded the company as Spidersoft in May 1992. Initially, it primarily developed Game Boy and Game Gear ports of various titles, including pinball video games for publisher 21st Century Entertainment, which acquired Spidersoft in 1995. After 21st Century Entertainment shut down in March 1998, Take-Two Interactive acquired Spidersoft in June that year and renamed it Tarantula Studios. The studio continued working on Game Boy and Game Boy Color games, such as Grand Theft Auto (1999). In 2002, the development portion of Tarantula Studios was shut down and the quality assurance portion was integrated into Take-Two's Rockstar Games label as Rockstar Lincoln.
Manhunt 2 is a 2007 stealth game by Rockstar Games. It was developed by Rockstar London for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 2, Rockstar Leeds for the PlayStation Portable, and Rockstar Toronto for the Wii. It is the sequel to 2003's Manhunt and was released in North America on 29 October 2007, and in the UK on 31 October 2008. Set in the fictional city of Cottonmouth, the game follows Daniel Lamb, a mental patient suffering from amnesia as he tries to uncover his identity, and Leo Kasper, a sociopathic assassin who guides Daniel in his journey.
Max Payne is a neo-noir third-person shooter video game series developed by Remedy Entertainment and Rockstar Studios. The series is named after its protagonist, Max Payne, a New York City police detective turned vigilante after his family was murdered by drug addicts. The series' first and second installments were written by Sam Lake, while Max Payne 3 was primarily written by Rockstar Games' Dan Houser.
