Rockstar Games is a major British 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.
- Rockstar is considered to be a global institution – list all of their studios and
Rockstar Japan 2005-present
Rockstar Leeds 2004–present
Rockstar Lincoln 1999–present Quality assurance and localization studio based in Lincoln, United Kingdom, previously known as Tarantula Studios.
Rockstar London 2005–present Formed in November 2005.
Rockstar New England 2008–present
Rockstar North 1999–present Founded in 1988
Rockstar San Diego 2003–present Previously known as Angel Studios
Rockstar Toronto 1999–present Take Two's in-house development team
Rockstar Vancouver 2002–present Previously known as Barking Dog Studios
Rockstar Vienna 2003–2006 Previously known as Neo Software
- when they were acquired by Rockstar.
Rockstar leeds was took over in 2004, formerly known as Mobius Entertainment.
Rockstar Lincoln was taken over in 2002, formerly known as tarantula studios.
Rockstar New England was taken over in 2008, formerly known as Mad Doc Software.
Rockstar North was taken over in 2001, formerly known as DMA Design
Rockstar San Diego was taken over in 2003, formerly know as Angel Studios.
Rockstar Vancouver was taken over in 2006, formerly known as Barking Dog Studios.
Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis (Xbox 360, Wii), 2006
Grand Theft Auto IV (Xbox 360, PS3, PC), 2008
Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City (Xbox 360, PS3, PC), 2009
Midnight Club: Los Angeles (Xbox 360, PS3), 2008
Red Dead Redemption (Xbox 360, PS3), 2010
Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare (Xbox 360, PS3), 2010
Max Payne 3 (Xbox 360, PS3, PC), 2012
Their most successful game to date in GTA: San Andreas with 27.5 million copies sold.
Former lawyer Jack Thompson has been involved in a number of attempts to get families of murder victims to hold the Grand Theft Auto series accountable for the death of their loved ones. Due to his conduct in this and related cases, Thompson was disbarred in 2008 and was fined more than $100,000 by the Florida Bar Association.
"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."
Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE) is a game engine developed by the RAGE Technology Group at the video game developer Rockstar San Diego with contributions by other Rockstar studios. Rockstar developed the engine to facilitate game development on Microsoft Windows, along with the PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360 consoles. RAGE evolved from the Angel Game Engine originally developed by Angel Studios for use in the sixth generation console era versions of the Midnight Club series and other Rockstar San Diego games.
LA Noire's engine - HAVOK: Havok Physics is a physics engine developed by Irish company Havok. It is designed primarily for video games, and allows for real-time collision and dynamics of rigid bodies in three dimensions. Havok allows for more realistic virtual worlds in games.
- Discuss the importance of franchises to Rockstar.
Franchises are important to Rockstar as this is where their base of income is brought from, the profits from these can then be used to create spin-offs from the franchise and or attempt to create a completely new franchises all together.
- Discuss how Rockstar is an example of vertical integration.
Rockstar are now a neutral party to the ‘big three’( Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony), they were commonly associated with Sony, however now they will accept offers that will profit them greatly, and example of this is Downloadable content. In 2009, Rockstar accepted an offer from Microsoft to keep ‘The Lost and Damned’ DLC for GTA IV, exclusive for XBOX 360 for a year.
