Type Subsidiary Website rockstargames.com | Industry Video game industry Parent organization Take-Two Interactive | |
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Predecessor BMG Interactive Entertainment Key people Sam Houser (executive producer)
Dan Houser (creative director) Headquarters New York City, New York, United States Founded December 1998, New York City, New York, United States Founders Dan Houser, Sam Houser, Terry Donovan, Gary Foreman, Jamie King Subsidiaries Rockstar North, Rockstar San Diego Video games Grand Theft Auto V, Grand Theft Auto: San Andr, Grand Theft Auto IV, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Red Dead Redemption Albums Welcome to Los Santos, The Music of Grand Theft Aut, Red Dead Redemption Original S, Max Payne 3: The Official S Profiles | ||
Rockstar Games, Inc. (sometimes referred to as Rockstar NYC) is an American video game publisher, best known for their Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead, Midnight Club, Max Payne, and Manhunt series of video games.
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Based in New York City, it was formed by Take-Two Interactive in December 1998, as successor to British video game publisher BMG Interactive Entertainment, a division of BMG Entertainment, from Bertelsmann, which was previously acquired. While some 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 Take-Two Interactive's 2K Games subsidiary.
Top 10 rockstar games
History
The Rockstar Games label was founded in December 1998 by the British video game producers Terry Donovan, Sam Houser, Dan Houser, Jamie King and Gary Foreman. Donovan left the company in January 2007, following a four-month leave of absence. He was replaced by former Capcom managing director, Gary Dale.
The main headquarters of Rockstar Games are located on Broadway in the NoHo neighborhood of New York City, part of the Take-Two Interactive offices. It is home to the marketing, public relations and product development departments.
As of February 2014, Rockstar Games titles have shipped more than 250 million copies, the largest franchise being the Grand Theft Auto series which alone has shipments of at least 250 million as of November 2016. Grand Theft Auto V shipped the highest number of units (at least 75 million copies) within series history and become one of the best selling video games of all time.
In March 2014, Rockstar Games received the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award at the British Academy Video Games Awards.
Charity Work
Rockstar Games has been involved with charity work ranging from supporting Movember, offering appearances in games as a raffle prize, to charity live streams playing their games.
Company philosophy
Despite their status as creators of Grand Theft Auto and one of the most successful video game franchises of all-time, Sam Houser and his brother Dan have shied away from the spotlight. They have focused on the Rockstar Games brand, rather than any one person getting the credit for the games' success.
In October 2011, Rockstar creative vice-president Dan Houser told Famitsu that Rockstar was 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."
Rockstar has since released an enhanced remake of Grand Theft Auto V for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, which can be fully played from the first-person perspective. This was made possible in part with higher quality firearm visuals, hindered audio-visual stimuli due to headgear, and additional animations - helping the game achieve aesthetic parity with other first-person shooters.
RAGE
Rockstar Games have developed their own game engine called the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE) to facilitate game development on the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Windows, Mac and Wii systems.
Social Club
Rockstar Games Social Club is an online gaming service created by Rockstar for use with their games.