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 Sam and Dan Houser, Terry Donovan 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.[2]
Since 1999, several companies acquired by or established under Take-Two have become part of Rockstar Games, such as Rockstar Canada (later renamed Rockstar Toronto) becoming the first one in 1999, and Rockstar Dundee the most recent in 2020. All companies organized under Rockstar Games bear the "Rockstar" name and logo. In this context, Rockstar Games is sometimes also referred to as Rockstar New York, Rockstar NY or Rockstar NYC. Rockstar Games also sports a motion capture studio in Bethpage, New York.[2]
On March 12, 1998, Take-Two Interactive announced its acquisition of the assets of dormant British video game publisher BMG Interactive from BMG Entertainment (a unit of Bertelsmann). In exchange, Take-Two was to issue 1.85 million shares (around 16%) of its common stock to BMG Entertainment.[4][5] Through this acquisition, Take-Two obtained several of BMG Interactive's former intellectual properties, including DMA Design's Grand Theft Auto and Space Station Silicon Valley.[6][7] The deal was announced to have closed on March 25.[8] Three BMG Interactive executives—Sam Houser, Dan Houser, and Jamie King—as well as Terry Donovan of BMG Entertainment's Arista Records record label, subsequently moved to New York City to work for Take-Two Interactive.[6] In a restructuring announced that April, Sam Houser was appointed as Take-Two's "vice president of worldwide product development".[9] In December 1998, the Houser brothers, Donovan and King established Rockstar Games as the "high-end" publishing label of Take-Two.[6][10][11][12] The formation was formally announced on January 22, 1999.[13]
In January 2007, Take-Two announced that Donovan, until then managing director for Rockstar Games, had left the company following a four-month leave of absence.[14] He was succeeded by Gary Dale, who became chief operating officer.[15] Dale previously worked with the Houser brothers and King at BMG Interactive, but left the company when it was acquired by Take-Two Interactive, and joined Capcom's European operations as managing director in 2003.[16][17]
As of February 2014, Rockstar Games titles have shipped more than 250 million copies,[18] the largest franchise being the Grand Theft Auto series, which alone has shipments of at least 250 million as of November 2016.[19]Grand Theft Auto V shipped the highest number of units within the series' and the company's history, with over 135 million copies, becoming one of the bestselling video games of all time.[20]
At the British Academy Video Games Awards in March 2014, Rockstar Games was honored with the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award for "creating intricately layered interactive worlds that have kept the company at the forefront of the gaming industry for over a decade, both critically and commercially".[21][22] Jennifer Kolbe, who started at the front desk of Take-Two, acts as Rockstar Games' head of publishing and oversees all development studios.[2][23] Simon Ramsey is the company's head of PR and communications.[23]
In September 2019, Rockstar Games announced that they had released their own game launcher, a digital distribution, digital rights management, multiplayer and communications service.[26] After having taken an extended break following the release of Red Dead Redemption 2 in early 2019, Dan Houser left Rockstar Games on March 11, 2020.[27]
The company acquired the Scottish studio Ruffian Games in October 2020, rebranding the studio as Rockstar Dundee.[28] In May 2021, Rockstar launched a record label, CircoLoco Records, in collaboration with Circoloco.[29]
Company philosophy
In October 2011, Dan Houser told Famitsu that Rockstar Games was intentionally avoiding developing games in the first-person shooter genre, because "it is in our DNA to avoid doing what other companies are doing [...] the goalpoint of Rockstar is to have the players really feel what we're trying to do."[30][31] Houser went on to say "Our games up to now have been different from any genre that existed at the time; we 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. [...] If we make the sort of games we want to play, then we believe people are going to buy them."[32]
The company has been involved with charitable work ranging from supporting Movember and offering appearances in games as a raffle prize, to charity live streams.[33][34]
Rockstar Games operates nine studios and an international publishing subsidiary. Where multiple Rockstar studios headed development efforts for a game, "Rockstar Studios" is named as the developer.
Rockstar Games Social Club is an online gaming service created by Rockstar Games for authentication and multiplayer applications within their games.
Rockstar Games Launcher
Rockstar Games released its own games launcher for Microsoft Windows on September 17, 2019. The launcher integrates with the user's Social Club account, allowing them to download and buy games that they have previously purchased through Rockstar's store, as well as launch Rockstar games available from other services, like Steam, from the launcher.[37]
