![]() | |
Formerly | Barking Dog Studios Ltd. (1998–2002) |
---|---|
Company type | Subsidiary |
Industry | Video games |
Founded | May 1998 |
Founders |
|
Defunct | 9 July 2012 |
Fate | Merged into Rockstar Toronto |
Headquarters | , Canada |
Number of employees | 35 (2012) |
Parent | Rockstar Games (2002–2012) |
Rockstar Vancouver Inc. (formerly Barking Dog Studios Ltd.) was a Canadian video game developer and a studio of Rockstar Games based in Vancouver. The studio is best known for developing Bully (2006).
Six former Radical Entertainment developers—Glenn Barnes, Peter Grant, Michael Gyori, Christopher Mair, Brian Thalken, and Sean Thompson—founded the company as Barking Dog Studios in May 1998. In its early years, Barking Dog briefly assisted Relic Entertainment with Homeworld (1999) before being greenlit to develop an expansion pack, Homeworld: Cataclysm (2000). The studio also developed Counter-Strike 's "Beta 5" update (1999), Global Operations (2002), and Treasure Planet: Battle at Procyon (2002). Take-Two Interactive acquired Barking Dog in August 2002 and integrated it with Rockstar Games as Rockstar Vancouver. The studio then developed Bully and was one of the Rockstar Games studios leading the development of Max Payne 3 (2012). In July 2012, Rockstar Games merged Rockstar Vancouver into Rockstar Toronto, with Rockstar Vancouver's 35 employees being given the option to relocate to Rockstar Toronto or any other Rockstar Games studio.
Rockstar Vancouver was founded as Barking Dog Studios by Glenn Barnes, Peter Grant, Michael Gyori, Christopher Mair, Brian Thalken, and Sean Thompson. [2] They had worked at the developer Radical Entertainment until the company faced financial difficulties in the late 1990s. [1] [3] As the studio's partnership with Disney had faltered, it lost its ESPN licence and was briefly in receivership. [3] [4] This prompted the formation of multiple companies by employees who left Radical Entertainment, including Black Box Games. [4] The sextet established Barking Dog in May 1998. [5] They sought a "non-corporate, non-pretentious" name during a brainstorming session and settled on one derived from the Barking Dog, a pub in California. [1] The company formally began operating on 16 July 1998 after signing its first publishing contract. [6]
The nascent studio worked with the developer Relic Entertainment and the publisher Sierra Studios on programming for the 1999 game Homeworld . Shortly thereafter, it was greenlit to develop an expansion pack, Homeworld: Cataclysm . During this time, Barking Dog moved into Relic Entertainment's offices and had roughly 20 employees engaged in the game's development. [7] Cataclysm was announced in February 2000 and released in September. [8] [9] When an updated version was released via the GOG.com platform in June 2017, its name was changed to Homeworld: Emergence because Blizzard Entertainment had since registered the "Cataclysm" trademark for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm . [10] [11]
Around 1999, Valve became interested in Counter-Strike , a mod co-created by the Barking Dog employee Minh Le. As it became more involved in the project, the company hired Barking Dog for the mod's "Beta 5" update. [12] The studio developed roughly 90% of that update, which was released in December 1999. [13] [14] Le joined Valve shortly thereafter to continue Counter-Strike's development, and the finished game was released in November 2000. [12] [15] In the same month, Barking Dog was rumoured to be developing a tactical first-person shooter, which Crave Entertainment announced as Global Operations in December of that year. [5] [16] Global Operations was released in March 2002, co-published by Crave Entertainment and Electronic Arts. [17] [18] Barking Dog began developing a proprietary game engine, ARES, in January 2001 and subsequently commenced production on a real-time strategy game using the engine that June. When the engine was unveiled in April 2002, the company expected to announce the game at that year's E3. [19] The game, titled Treasure Planet: Battle at Procyon , was developed in tandem with Treasure Planet , the Disney film it is based on. Disney's games division, Disney Interactive, released the game in November 2002, shortly before the movie. [20] [21]
On 1 August 2002, Take-Two Interactive announced its acquisition of Barking Dog for US$3 million in cash and 242,450 shares of restricted common stock, an estimated $9 million total value. [22] [23] Barking Dog was integrated with Take-Two's Rockstar Games label as Rockstar Vancouver. Rockstar Canada, Rockstar Games's studio in Oakville, Ontario, was renamed Rockstar Toronto to avoid confusion between the two. [2] Jamie Leece, the president of Take-Two's Gotham Games label, assisted in the acquisition. [24] At the time, the studio and its roughly 50 employees were working with Rockstar Games on two games: a military action game and an original title. [2] [25] In the time following the acquisition, several Rockstar Vancouver employees (including some of its founders) set up new studios, including Ironclad Games (2003), [26] Kerberos Productions (2004), [27] Slant Six Games (2005), [28] Big Sandwich Games (2006), [29] Hellbent Games (2006), [30] and United Front Games (2007). [31]
Under Rockstar Games, Rockstar Vancouver worked on Spec Ops, a reboot of the eponymous series. With music by Josh Homme and Alain Johannes of the band Queens of the Stone Age, the game was to be released in late 2005 but it was cancelled that year. [32] [33] The studio's first released game was announced as Bully in May 2005. [34] Before its release, the game's name and theme attracted some controversy from politicians, parents, and activists like Jack Thompson, who regarded it as advocating for school violence. [35] [36] In Europe, it was renamed Canis Canem Edit. [37] Upon its 2006 release, the game garnered a positive critical response, and PC Gamer 's Sam Roberts labelled it Rockstar Games's "softest and silliest game, with the warmest heart" in a 2014 retrospective. [35] [38]
In October 2008, Rockstar Vancouver was rumoured to be developing a third entry in the Max Payne series created by Remedy Entertainment. [39] Rockstar Games announced Max Payne 3 in March 2009, expecting to release it later that year. [40] According to Dan Houser, the creative director, a new Max Payne game was chosen over a Bully sequel due to having what he described as "limited bandwidth and limited studios, and more games to make than we've started". [41] The development became a cooperation between Rockstar Vancouver, Rockstar Toronto, Rockstar London, and Rockstar New England. [42] In a January 2010 open letter, the wives of several Rockstar San Diego employees claimed that their spouses had regularly worked overtime and that the studio was suffering from mismanagement. [43] These claims were echoed by former employees of other Rockstar Games studios, including Rockstar Vancouver. [44] [45] The mismanagement was said to have caused Max Payne 3 missing its intended release window, being rescheduled for August–October 2010. [46] It was eventually released in May 2012. [47]
Two months later, on 9 July 2012, Rockstar Games announced that Rockstar Toronto would be moving into larger, custom-built offices in Oakville, into which Rockstar Vancouver would be merged. [48] Rockstar Vancouver's 35 employees were given the option to relocate to the expanded Rockstar Toronto or any other Rockstar Games studio. [49] Jennifer Kolbe, Rockstar Games's vice-president of publishing and operations, stated creating a single Canadian team that would "make for a powerful creative force on future projects", while making room for 50 new positions at Rockstar Toronto. [50] [51] Rockstar Vancouver's legal entity, Rockstar Vancouver Inc., remained registered under Canada's federal company laws. In November 2012, it became a British Columbia corporation as Rockstar Games Vancouver Inc. and then an unlimited liability corporation as Rockstar Games Vancouver ULC. [52] [53] In August 2019, it was renamed Take-Two Interactive Software Vancouver ULC. [54]
Year | Title | Platform(s) | Publisher(s) | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
2000 | Homeworld: Cataclysm | Windows | Sierra Studios | |
Counter-Strike | Linux, macOS, Windows, Xbox | Developed the "Beta 5" update (1999) | ||
2002 | Global Operations | Windows | Crave Entertainment, Electronic Arts | |
Treasure Planet: Battle at Procyon | Disney Interactive |
Year | Title | Platform(s) | Publisher(s) | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
2006 | Bully | Android, iOS, PlayStation 2, Wii, Windows, Xbox 360 | Rockstar Games | |
2012 | Max Payne 3 | macOS, PlayStation 3, Windows, Xbox 360 | Developed as part of Rockstar Studios |
Max Payne is a 2001 third-person shooter game developed by Remedy Entertainment. It was originally released for Windows by Gathering of Developers in July 2001, and was later ported by Rockstar Games to the PlayStation 2 and Xbox in December 2001, and by MacSoft and Feral Interactive to Mac OS X in July 2002. A version of the game for the Game Boy Advance, featuring an isometric perspective but retaining most of the original's gameplay elements, was released by Rockstar in December 2003, and an enhanced port for mobile devices was published in 2012 to coincide with the release of Rockstar's Max Payne 3. A Dreamcast version of the game was also planned, but was canceled due to the discontinuation of the console in 2001. Max Payne was also made available on Xbox 360 as part of Xbox Originals program in 2009, on PlayStation 3 as a PS2 Classic in 2012, on PlayStation 4 in 2016, and on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S in 2021, due to the consoles' respective backward compatibility and emulation features.
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.
Homeworld: Cataclysm is a 2000 real-time strategy video game developed by Barking Dog Studios and published by Sierra Studios for Windows. It is the second entry in the Homeworld series and was originally developed as an expansion for Relic Entertainment's Homeworld, but was ultimately released as a stand-alone sequel. Set fifteen years after the events of the first game, Cataclysm follows the Kuun-Lan, a Kushaan mining starship that attempts to counter "the Beast", a destructive nanobot virus, while combatting the imperialist remnants of the Taiidan Empire, who seek revenge on the Kushaan and control of Hiigara.
Relic Entertainment Inc. is a Canadian video game developer based in Vancouver, founded in 1997. The studio specializes in real-time strategy games and is known for series such as Homeworld, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War and Company of Heroes. Acquired by THQ in 2004, the company was sold to Sega on January 22, 2013, as part of THQ's bankruptcy and operated under its European division. By May 2024, Relic had secured a partnership with an external investment group, allowing it to split from Sega and operate independently.
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 entries in the Max Payne franchise, Alan Wake, Quantum Break and Control. Sam Lake, Remedy's creative director, 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 Alfred Chicken, and the cancelled Titanium Angels. Starting in 2001, the studio created Game Boy Advance games for several publishers, including multiple for The 3DO Company and Max Payne for Rockstar Games.
Rockstar Toronto 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.
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.
Max Payne 3 is a 2012 third-person shooter game developed and published by Rockstar Games. The game was first released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on May 15, 2012; a Windows port was released on May 29, followed by an OS X port on June 20, 2013. It is the sequel to Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne and is the third entry in the Max Payne series. It is also backwards compatible on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.
Bully is a 2006 action-adventure video game developed by Rockstar Vancouver and published by Rockstar Games. It was released on 17 October 2006 for the PlayStation 2. A remastered version of the game, subtitled Scholarship Edition, was developed by Mad Doc Software and released on 4 March 2008 for Xbox 360 and Wii, and on 21 October 2008 for Windows. Bully was re-released for PlayStation 4 available via PlayStation Network on 22 March 2016. An updated version of the Scholarship Edition, titled Anniversary Edition, was developed by War Drum Studios and released for Android and iOS on 8 December 2016.
Radical Entertainment Inc. is a Canadian video game developer based in Vancouver. The studio is best known for developing The Simpsons: Hit & Run (2003), Scarface: The World Is Yours (2006), Prototype (2009) and Prototype 2 (2012), as well as entries in the Crash Bandicoot franchise. Radical Entertainment was founded in September 1991 by Rory Armes, Dave Davis, and Ian Wilkinson. It was acquired by Vivendi Games in 2005 and transferred to Activision in 2008. The studio faced significant layoffs in 2010 and 2012, with the latter causing it to cease development of original games and only support other Activision studios.
Rockstar Vienna 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 as 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 offices in 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 as part of a subsidiary exchange.
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 a technical director for Activision. The studio worked with Activision on Star Trek: Armada before leading the development of its sequel, Star Trek: Armada II. Starting in 2002, 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 the end of 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's parent company, Take-Two Interactive, bought Mad Doc and integrated it with 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 London Limited is a British video game developer and a studio of Rockstar Games based in London. Mark Washbrook established the company in November 2005 within Rockstar Games' European publishing offices. The studio's first game was Manhunt 2, which it took over from Rockstar Vienna after that studio was shut down in May 2006. Rockstar London later developed Midnight Club: L.A. Remix and co-led the development of Max Payne 3. Washbrook left the company in January 2011.
The Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE) is a proprietary game engine of Rockstar Games, developed by the RAGE Technology Group division of Rockstar San Diego, based on the Angel Game Engine. Since its first game, Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis in 2006, released for the Xbox 360 and Wii, the engine has been used by Rockstar Games's internal studios to develop advanced open world games for computers and consoles.
Rockstar Lincoln Limited is a British video game developer based in North Hykeham. It is the quality assurance and localisation studio of Rockstar Games. Steve Marsden and David Cooke founded the company as Spidersoft in May 1992. It initially developed Game Boy and Game Gear ports of various games, including several pinball video games for the publisher 21st Century Entertainment, which acquired the studio in 1995. Following 21st Century Entertainment's shutdown in 1998, Spidersoft was sold to Take-Two Interactive and renamed Tarantula Studios. The studio continued working on Game Boy and Game Boy Color games, including Grand Theft Auto (1999). In 2002, the development arm of Tarantula Studios was shut down and its quality assurance portion integrated with Take-Two's Rockstar Games label as Rockstar Lincoln.
Daniel Houser is an English video game writer and producer. He is one of the co-founders of Rockstar Games alongside his brother Sam Houser. He served as the head writer and vice president of creativity until his resignation in 2020. His brother is the current president of Rockstar Games.
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 first two installments were written by Sam Lake, while Max Payne 3 was primarily written by Rockstar Games' Dan Houser.
Rockstar Interactive India LLP is an Indian video game developer and a studio of Rockstar Games based in Bangalore. The company was established in August 2016 and is led by studio director Daniel Smith. It absorbed Dhruva Interactive, India's oldest game developer, in May 2019.