Rockstar Games

Rockstar Games, Inc.

Type	Subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive
Industry	Computer and video games Interactive entertainment
Founded	1998
Headquarters	New York City, United States
Key people	Sam Houser (president) Dan Houser (vice president)
Products	Grand Theft Auto Midnight Club Manhunt Red Dead Max Payne Bully L.A. Noire The Warriors
Owner(s)	Take-Two Interactive
Parent	Take-Two Interactive
Website	www.rockstargames.com

Rockstar Games is a major video game developer and publisher based in New York City, owned by Take-Two Interactive following its purchase of UK video game publisher BMG Interactive. The brand is mostly known for Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne, L.A. Noire, The Warriors, Bully, Manhunt, Midnight Club, State of Emergency, and Red Dead series and the use of open world, free roaming settings in their games. It comprises studios that have been acquired and renamed as well as others that have been created internally. While many 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 the company's 2K Games division. The Rockstar Games label was founded in New York City in 1998 by the English video game producers Sam Houser, Dan Houser, Terry Donovan, Jamie King and Gary Foreman.

The headquarters of Rockstar Games (commonly referred to as Rockstar NYC) is located on Broadway in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City, part of the Take-Two Interactive offices. It is home to the marketing, public relations and product development departments.

Company goal

In October 2011, Rockstar creative vice president Dan Houser told Famitsu that Rockstar is 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."

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, Xbox 360, Windows, Mac and Wii systems.

Social Club

Main article: Rockstar Games Social Club

The Rockstar Games Social Club is a community website created by Rockstar for use with their games.

Rockstar studios

Logo	Name	Years as Rockstar division	Notes
	Rockstar Japan	2005-present	Responsible for localization in Japan of Rockstar titles
	Rockstar Leeds	2004–present	Previously known as Mobius Entertainment and based in Lower Wortley, Leeds, England. They created Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories for the PlayStation Portable, Max Payne for the Game Boy Advance, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, and the music game Beaterator. The studio's most recent work is the Microsoft Windows version of L.A. Noire.
	Rockstar Lincoln	1999–present	Quality assurance and localization studio based in Lincoln, England, previously known as Tarantula Studios.
	Rockstar London	2005–present	Formed in November 2005. Took over development of Manhunt 2 after Rockstar Vienna closed and recently developed the portable adaptation of Midnight Club: Los Angeles.
	Rockstar New England	2008–present	Acquired on April 4, 2008, this studio is based in Andover, Massachusetts, U.S. and was previously known as Mad Doc Software. They developed the Xbox 360 and PC ports of Bully.
	Rockstar North	2002–present	Founded in 2002, Rockstar North is based in Edinburgh, Scotland, and was previously known as DMA Design. They are famous for the Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead and Manhunt franchises, as well as the original Lemmings games.
	Rockstar San Diego	2003–present	Previously known as Angel Studios, they developed the RAGE engine, Red Dead Revolver and Red Dead Redemption, the Smuggler's Run series, the first two Midtown Madness games and the Midnight Club series.
	Rockstar Toronto	1999–present	Take Two's in-house development team, previously known as Rockstar Canada. 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 Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City.
	Rockstar Vancouver	2002–present	Previously known as Barking Dog Studios, they created the PlayStation 2 title Bully and are currently developing the third game in the Max Payne series, Max Payne 3.
	Rockstar Vienna	2003–2006	Previously known as Neo Software; closed on May 11, 2006. They ported the Max Payne series to consoles, and created most of Manhunt 2 before being closed down.

External developers

• Bungie developed the game Oni for Windows and Macintosh, which was then ported by Rockstar to the PS2 and published by them. Before Bungie was bought by Microsoft, their breakthrough product, Halo, was planned for release on video game consoles with Rockstar as publisher.
• Capcom had early development in Rockstar San Diego's Red Dead Revolver and previously owned the Japanese distribution rights to the Grand Theft Auto franchise.
• Digital Eclipse Software collaborated with Rockstar North while developing Grand Theft Auto Advance.
• Edge of Reality developed Monster Truck Madness 64.
• Opus, in collaboration with ASCII Entertainment developed Surfing H3O.
• Remedy Entertainment and 3D Realms developed the Max Payne series. 3D Realms also developed the Xbox Live Arcade version of Duke Nukem 3D, which is published by Rockstar.
• Team Bondi an Australian independent gaming developer who developed L.A. Noire with Rockstar.
• VIS Entertainment is known for developing the State of Emergency game.
• Z-Axis developed Thrasher presents Skate and Destroy.
• Image Metrics has done most of the facial animation in most of Rockstar's games.

Games published

Main article: List of Rockstar games

Notable game series

• Grand Theft Auto series (1997–present)
• Midnight Club series (2000–2008)
• Max Payne series (2001–present)
• Manhunt series (2003–2007)
• Red Dead series (2004–present)

Films

Films	Release	Genre
The Football Factory1	2004	Drama
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - The Introduction	2004	Drama
Sunday Driver1	2005	Documentary
Red Dead Redemption: The Man From Blackwater	2010	Drama
Notes Rockstar Games is credited as executive producers.

In 2011, Rockstar Games trademarked Rockstar Films.

External links

• Rockstar Games