Rockstar Games

(left) and Sam Houser photographed in the early 2010s. Dan left the company in 2020; Sam is the president. 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. 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. The deal was announced to have closed on March 25. Three BMG Interactive executives—Dan Houser, Sam Houser, and Jamie King—as well as Gary Foreman of BMG Interactive and Terry Donovan of BMG Entertainment's Arista Records record label, subsequently moved to New York City to work for Take-Two Interactive. In a restructuring announced that April, Sam Houser was appointed as Take-Two's "vice president of worldwide product development". In December 1998, the Houser brothers, Donovan and King established Rockstar Games as the "high-end" publishing label of Take-Two. The formation was formally announced on January 22, 1999. 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. He was succeeded by Gary Dale, who became chief operating officer. 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. 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 within the series' and the company's history, with over 220 million copies, making it the second best-selling video game of all time. At the 10th British Academy 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". Jennifer Kolbe, who started at the front desk of Take-Two, acts as Rockstar Games' head of publishing and oversees all development studios. Simon Ramsey is the company's head of PR and communications. In September 2019, Rockstar Games announced that it had released its own game launcher, a digital distribution, digital rights management, multiplayer and communications service. 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. The company acquired the Scottish studio Ruffian Games in October 2020, rebranding the studio as Rockstar Dundee. In September 2022, Rockstar was the target of a data breach in which 90 videos from the development of Grand Theft Auto VI were leaked. Rockstar described the leak as a "network intrusion", and noted that it was "extremely disappointed" by the manner in which the game was first demonstrated, but that it did not anticipate long-term effects on development. In August 2023, Rockstar acquired Cfx.re (CitizenFX), the team behind the modding platforms FiveM and RedM for Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2 respectively. Michael Unsworth, vice president of writing, departed the company in 2023 after sixteen years. In March 2025, Rockstar announced it would acquire Sydney-based studio Video Games Deluxe, consisting of former L.A. Noire developers, and rename it Rockstar Australia. In April 2026, Rockstar was targeted by the ShinyHunters hacking group, who threatened to leak information on April 14. In a statement to Kotaku, Rockstar confirmed the breach and stated the incident has "no impact on our organization or our players". == 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." 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." 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. == Labor relations ==

In October 2018, Jason Schreier published an account of crunch culture at Rockstar Games. According to Schreier, "Most current and former Rockstar employees said they had been asked or felt compelled to work nights and weekends," with many reporting working an average of 55 to 60 hours a week. Rockstar acknowledged that some employees had worked evenings and weekends, but disputed the average working hours as "individual anecdotes which are usually self-selecting...for the most extreme ends of the scale." The Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain (IWGB) denied this and accused the company of union busting, stating the employees were attempting to unionize with labor organizers on Discord. The IWGB organized protests outside Rockstar North and Take-Two's Edinburgh and London offices, respectively, on November 6, attended and supported by Scottish Greens co-leader Ross Greer. In December 2025, Labour MP Chris Murray raised the issue at Prime Minister's Questions after meeting with the affected workers. In response, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the firings were "deeply concerning" and said that the Government would investigate. In January 2026, a preliminary hearing by the Glasgow Employment Tribunal to assess providing interim relief (i.e., that Rockstar should continue paying the staff until a full hearing) rejected this, stating it did not appear likely that a full hearing would find trade union membership as the principal reason for dismissal. == Studios ==

Outside of its New York City headquarters, Rockstar Games operates several subsidiary studios worldwide. All studios use the Rockstar Games logo with individual colors. As of 2018, the company employs more than 2,000 people across all offices. The studios frequently collaborate and were collectively credited as Rockstar Studios in Max Payne 3, and simply as Rockstar Games in Red Dead Redemption 2. Former == Games ==

RAGE Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE) is a game engine developed by the Rockstar San Diego-internal RAGE Technology Group, created to facilitate game development on all platforms since 2006. RAGE is used in most of Rockstar Games's titles for personal computers and consoles, including Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto IV, Max Payne 3, Grand Theft Auto V, and Red Dead Redemption 2. Rockstar Games Social Club Rockstar Games Social Club is an online gaming service created by Rockstar Games for authentication and multiplayer applications within its games. Most branding relating to Social Club was removed from Rockstar's website by November 2023. Rockstar Games Launcher Rockstar Games released its own games launcher for 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. == Other projects ==

Rockstar Loft In 1999, Donovan and Sam Houser cooperated with John Davis to establish the Rockstar Loft club night. Davis had co-founded and been the promoter for Body & Soul, a "no-guestlist, no velvet rope party" held weekly at Tribeca's Club Vinyl. When Rockstar Games' founder originally arrived in New York City, former DJ Donovan was particularly impressed with Body & Soul, and they became close with the club night's team, including Davis and its other founder, DJ François K. Davis had sought to establish further such events, while Donovan and Houser wanted to get publicity for the young Rockstar Games, thus they established Rockstar Loft. According to Donovan, the event was to serve as an alternative those that were overly expensive or had attendees "bulldozed by security". He precluded video game installations at the venue to focus on the music and highlight the artists. As it could not afford frequent television advertisements, Rockstar Games resorted to guerrilla marketing teams distributing fly posters and stickers. Tickets for Rockstar Loft were originally not sold in advance. Instead, potential guests were to call a phone number and face seven questions regarding their personality. If answered to the liking of the operator, the caller would receive their entry ticket in the mail. Thereafter, it was held "every few months", with one happening on February 19, 2000. Later that year, Rockstar Loft was wound down. In 2004, Rockstar Games produced the sports drama film The Football Factory. Based on the book of the same name by John King, the film revolves around organized football hooliganism in the United Kingdom. The company also produced Sunday Driver, a documentary about the Majestics Lowrider Club in Compton, California, and The Introduction, an animated film that details the events leading up to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Both were bundled with the game's special edition released in 2005. CircoLoco Records In May 2021, Rockstar Games launched the record label CircoLoco Records in collaboration with Circoloco, an Ibiza-based dance party. The collaboration grew from a friendship between Sam Houser and Circoloco's promoter, Antonio Carbonaro. According to Nick Benedetti, the party's manager, Rockstar Games and Circoloco intended to "contribute something new and meaningful" to the dance music scene, which had faced hardships because of the lockdowns brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. CircoLoco Records' first release, Monday Dreamin', was released as a series of extended plays starting in June 2021. == References ==