Misplaced Pages

#614385

138-537: Rockstar North ( Rockstar Games UK Limited ; formerly DMA Design Limited and Rockstar North Limited ) is a British video game developer and a studio of Rockstar Games based in Edinburgh . The studio is best known for creating the Lemmings and Grand Theft Auto series, including Grand Theft Auto V , the second-best-selling game and most profitable entertainment product of all time. David Jones founded

276-563: A PC Engine port of Shadow of the Beast for Psygnosis. DMA Design also made Shadow of the Beast ' s Commodore 64 port and the PC Engine and MS-DOS versions for Ballistix . Jones's father-in-law, the owner of the Dundee fish and chip shop The Deep Sea, lent him a small office space above the shop's former location at 134B Nethergate in Dundee. The infill building, built in 1893,

414-593: A database , Voice over IP , or add-in interface software; this is also known as middleware . Examples of this include SpeedTree and Havoc . Independents are software developers which are not owned by (or dependent on) a single publisher. Some of these developers self-publish their games, relying on the Internet and word of mouth for publicity. Without the large marketing budgets of mainstream publishers, their products may receive less recognition than those of larger publishers such as Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo. With

552-689: A public company on the London Stock Exchange . Jones's stake in the company was valued at £55 million at the time. Meanwhile, Bertelsmann had decided to withdraw from the video game industry and shut down the American division of BMG Interactive. In its place, the release in North America was licensed to ASC Games . Gremlin Interactive also picked up the rights to Body Harvest and engaged Midway Home Entertainment as

690-511: A £500,000 motion capture studio that found little usage. Another section housed DMA Music with seven full-time musicians. Race'n'Chase formally entered into production in March 1995. The development team consisted mostly of recent graduates with little development experience, with Hamilton as the lead programmer. As such, the team was highly unorganised and struggled with the development until Gary Penn moved from BMG Interactive to DMA Design as

828-607: A "terrible" deal, the 20,000 sales allowed him to buy a Vauxhall Astra car and regularly visit the Psygnosis offices to meet other game developers. While working on a sequel to Menace , the difficulty of Jones's university programme spiked, leading him to drop out and pursue game development full-time, against the advice of his professors. He intended to return after one year but never finished his studies, eventually receiving an honorary degree . Jones soon began hiring his friends: Dailly, who had just been expelled from college, became

966-479: A Rocket Boy in October 2018 and, following a confidential settlement , the case was dismissed on 8 February 2019. For Red Dead Redemption 2 , all Rockstar Games studios pooled their resources to act as one team. Rockstar North had grown to 650 employees by the time of the game's October 2018 release. In July 2021, Rockstar North bought Barclay House, where it had become the sole tenant, for £31 million and

1104-403: A contract basis, were soon made to experiment with Walker . While they needed an artist to create characters just sixteen pixels tall, which Scott Johnston took on, Dailly believed the sprites could be smaller and challenged himself to create eight-pixel-high characters. He spent a lunch break hour building a showcase animation of such characters walking in a line and being killed comically, to

1242-452: A culture of "toxic geek masculinity" within the workplace. In addition, the conditions behind crunch time are far more discriminating towards women as this requires them to commit time exclusively to the company or to more personal activities like raising a family. These factors established conditions within some larger development studios where female developers have found themselves discriminated in workplace hiring and promotion, as well as

1380-420: A fighting simulator set in a city; after the release of Syndicate Wars (1996), the company revised the concept to set it in a "living city" and cross it with a driving game, resulting in the successful and controversial Grand Theft Auto , which in turn sparked an entire franchise. In 2012 Jones revealed that much of the controversy surrounding Grand Theft Auto was engineered by their publicist. DMA Design

1518-571: A first-party company. As a balance to not being able to release their game for other platforms, second-party developers are usually offered higher royalty rates than third-party developers. These studios may have exclusive publishing agreements (or other business relationships) with the platform holder, but maintain independence so that upon completion or termination of their contracts, they are able to continue developing games for other publishers if they choose to. For example, while HAL Laboratory initially began developing games on personal computers like

SECTION 10

#1732772713615

1656-410: A fixed period and generally work similar hours as full-time staff members, assisting across all areas of video game development, but as contractors, do not get any benefits such as paid time-off or health care from the employer; they also are typically not credited on games that they work on for this reason. The practice itself is legal and common in other engineering and technology areas, and generally it

1794-403: A game on schedule. The complexity of workflow, reliance on third-party deliverables, and the intangibles of artistic and aesthetic demands in video game creation create difficulty in predicting milestones. The use of crunch time is also seen to be exploitative of the younger male-dominated workforce in video games, who have not had the time to establish a family and who were eager to advance within

1932-484: A game that saw the player control a dinosaur and destroy the city. After adding cars to make the scene more lively, a colleague suggested having the player drive these cars instead. Jones took notice of Dailly's project and passed it to a team that should turn it into a game. The Liaison and Promotion Company, which had taken on marketing for DMA Design and its games in July 1993, presented the studio with potential partners for

2070-406: A game's profits. Current examples of first-party studios include PlayStation Studios for Sony, and Xbox Game Studios for Microsoft Gaming . Second-party developer is a colloquial term often used by gaming enthusiasts and media to describe game studios that take development contracts from platform holders and develop games exclusive to that platform, i.e. a non-owned developer making games for

2208-505: A number of successful titles, also spawning the category of Grand Theft Auto clones , which includes The Simpsons: Hit & Run , True Crime: Streets of LA , Driver 3 , and Saints Row . Plans to outfit Grand Theft Auto III with an online multiplayer component were scrapped in favour of a follow up, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City . Rockstar Games initially sought the studio to produce an expansion pack for Grand Theft Auto III before its expanding scope led it to be considered

2346-437: A position in a medium to large video game company. An experienced game-development employee, depending on their expertise and experience, averaged roughly $ 73,000 in 2007. Indie game developers may only earn between $ 10,000 and $ 50,000 a year depending on how financially successful their titles are. In addition to being part of the software industry, game development is also within the entertainment industry; most sectors of

2484-637: A result, Take-Two acquired BMG Interactive, since dormant, for 1.85 million shares worth US$ 14.2 million in March 1998. Through the acquisition, Take-Two also obtained the intellectual property of Grand Theft Auto and Space Station Silicon Valley , and it published the former's PlayStation version in North America later that year. Houser subsequently moved over to Take-Two as its "vice president of worldwide product development", in charge of internal and external development studios. The company also incrementally purchased all individual publishing rights for Grand Theft Auto from other companies to hold

2622-628: A roughly half-year salary that he invested into an Amiga 1000 , and subsequently enrolled in computer science at the Dundee Institute of Technology (DIT). Hammond also attended the DIT, and all four soon joined its computer club. Because Jones easily passed the course's first year, he had much time to learn to programme for the Amiga and spent one year creating the shoot 'em up CopperCon1 . Working out of his parents' bedroom, he provisionally used

2760-649: A roundtable discussion with the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), the professional association for developers. Statements made by the IGDA's current executive director Jen MacLean relating to IGDA's activities had been seen by as anti-union, and Game Workers Unite desired to start a conversation to lay out the need for developers to unionize. In the wake of the sudden near-closure of Telltale Games in September 2018,

2898-560: A second chance from Jones. The game featured a young version of the title character , who would have been launched around levels using the Super NES Mouse . In November 1994, a team of five people commenced developing Body Harvest , scheduled to be a launch title for the Nintendo 64. In the meantime, Dailly was experimenting with ways to render 3D buildings from a top-down perspective . To showcase this technology, he devised

SECTION 20

#1732772713615

3036-407: A single publisher; one canceled game may devastate a small developer. Because of this, many small development companies are short-lived. A common exit strategy for a successful video game developer is to sell the company to a publisher, becoming an in-house developer. In-house development teams tend to have more freedom in game design and content than third-party developers. One reason is that since

3174-399: A standalone product. Vice City reused its predecessor's engine, such that the programmers were not engaged until six months before the end of the production, and lessons learned from the previous development cycle allowed the designers to plan features more efficiently. In the meantime, the programmers worked on bringing Grand Theft Auto III to personal computers . In March 2002, DMA Design

3312-522: A story by Hammond. All New World of Lemmings was the final game in Jones's original deal with Psygnosis and, with fatigue for Lemmings at the studio, Psygnosis hired other developers for subsequent entries. Among them, Kay and Visual Sciences made Lemmings Paintball . After leaving Lemmings behind, DMA Design began researching development for the 3DO . In another project, Psygnosis briefly had DMA Design emulate an in-development Star Wars game on

3450-403: A strong STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) background for women at the secondary education level, but there are issues with tertiary education such as at colleges and universities, where game development programs tend to reflect the male-dominated demographics of the industry, a factor that may lead women with strong STEM backgrounds to choose other career goals. There

3588-697: A unique case where nearly all parts of its labor force, including white-collar jobs such as video game development, may engage with labor unions under the Employment Protection Act often through collective bargaining agreements. Developer DICE had reached its union agreements in 2004. Paradox Interactive became one of the first major publishers to support unionization efforts in June 2020 with its own agreements to cover its Swedish employees within two labor unions Unionen and SACO . In Australia, video game developers could join other unions, but

3726-513: A zombie survival game set on a Scottish island. The game repurposed code from Vice City and was in production for around one month before the concept lost traction at the studio. The studio's Manhunt , a stealth game, was released in 2003 after roughly three years in development. Due to its dark tone and focus on realistic violence, it was handled as the studio's pet project as most people at Rockstar Games wanted no part in it. Rockstar North assisted Rockstar Vienna and later Rockstar London in

3864-482: Is also a significant gap in racial minorities within the video game industry; a 2019 IGDA survey found only 2% of developers considered themselves to be of African descent and 7% Hispanic, while 81% were Caucasian; in contrast, 2018 estimates from the United States Census estimate the U.S. population to be 13% of African descent and 18% Hispanic. In a 2014 and 2015 survey of job positions and salaries,

4002-449: Is expected that this is meant to lead into a full-time position, or otherwise the end of the contract. But more recently, its use in the video game industry has been compared to Microsoft 's past use of " permatemp ", contract workers that were continually renewed and treated for all purposes as employees but received no benefits. While Microsoft has waned from the practice, the video game industry has adapted it more frequently. Around 10% of

4140-533: Is generally illegal, companies often target their oldest workers first during layoffs or other periods of reduction. Older developers with experience may find themselves too qualified for the types of positions that other game development companies seek given the salaries and compensations offered. Some of the larger video game developers and publishers have also engaged contract workers through agencies to help add manpower in game development in part to alleviate crunch time from employees. Contractors are brought on for

4278-762: Is great. David Jones, founder of DMA Design, 1997 The development on Body Harvest was torn between differing demands from Nintendo and its American branch. The team sought to keep up its relationship with Nintendo and caved in to these demands. Despite stark changes to the game's design, Nintendo was dissatisfied with the result and cancelled the game. Still in financial disarray and wanting his company to focus on game development, Jones arranged for Gremlin Graphics (since renamed Gremlin Interactive) to acquire DMA Design for £4.2 million in April 1997. The publisher

Rockstar North - Misplaced Pages Continue

4416-481: Is sometimes called the Wee Pink Nethergate House. When DMA Design inaugurated its office there on 1 August 1989, the ground floor housed Gooseberry Bush, a children's clothing store. The studio continued to expand, also hiring many students to work part-time. In 1990, DMA Design cancelled several projects: The Golden Axe -inspired Gore! was shelved due to technical restrictions of the Amiga at

4554-494: Is still their primary activity they are generally described as "publishers" rather than "developers". Developers may be private as well. In the video game industry , a first-party developer is part of a company that manufactures a video game console and develops mainly for it. First-party developers may use the name of the company itself (such as Nintendo ), have a specific division name (such as Sony's Polyphony Digital ) or have been an independent studio before being acquired by

4692-474: Is usually conducted in a casual business environment, with t-shirts and sandals as common work attire. Many workers find this type of environment rewarding and pleasant professionally and personally. However, the industry also requires long working hours from its employees (sometimes to an extent seen as unsustainable). Employee burnout is not uncommon. An entry-level programmer can make, on average, over $ 66,000 annually only if they are successful in obtaining

4830-632: The Crackdown franchise for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One consoles, and the open-ended massively multiplayer online game , APB: All Points Bulletin . In 2009, he was chosen by IGN as one of the top 100 game creators of all time. David Scott Jones was born in Dundee in October 1965. His career in the video game industry began in 1987 after he was made redundant from the Timex factory in Dundee, using

4968-659: The AFL–CIO writing an open letter to video game developers encouraging them to unionize. In January 2020, Game Workers Unite and the Communications Workers of America established a new campaign to push for unionization of video game developers, the Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE), in January 2020. Initial efforts for CODE were aimed to determine what approach to unionization would be best suited for

5106-466: The Dundee native David Jones gained early programming knowledge when his secondary school, Linlathen High, obtained an Apple II computer and piloted O-level qualifications in computer studies . In 1983, after leaving school, he took up an apprenticeship at the local plant of the electronics manufacturer Timex . Although the company was best known for producing watches, the Dundee factory also built home computers for Sinclair Research , including

5244-456: The International Game Developers Association (IGDA), are conducting increasing discussions about the problem; they are concerned that working conditions in the industry cause a significant deterioration in employees' quality of life. Some video game developers and publishers have been accused of the excessive invocation of "crunch time". "Crunch time" is the point at which the team is thought to be failing to achieve milestones needed to launch

5382-516: The MSX , they became one of the earliest second-party developers for Nintendo, developing exclusively for Nintendo's consoles starting with the Famicom, though they would self-publish their mobile games. A third-party developer may also publish games, or work for a video game publisher to develop a title. Both publisher and developer have considerable input in the game's design and content. However,

5520-528: The Me Too movement and have tried to address the symptoms of these problems industry-wide, the video game industry has yet to have its Me Too-moment, even as late as 2021. There also tends to be pay-related discrimination against women in the industry. According to Gamasutra 's Game Developer Salary Survey 2014, women in the United States made 86 cents for every dollar men made. Game designing women had

5658-525: The PlayStation and Sega Saturn , because Jones disliked "multiformat publishing for the sake of it". DMA Design's first project for Nintendo was Unirally , a racing game featuring animated unicycles created using 2D sprites rendered from a 3D model . Following the game's 1994 release for the SNES, the animation studio Pixar sued Nintendo over perceived similarities between the game's characters and

Rockstar North - Misplaced Pages Continue

5796-504: The Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) union doing work for video games struck several major publishers, demanding better royalty payments and provisions related to the safety of their vocal performances, when their union's standard contract was up for renewal. The voice actor strike lasted for over 300 days into 2017 before a new deal was made between SAG-AFTRA and

5934-596: The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). During one trade show , Jones caught the attention of Nintendo with a full-motion video Star Wars clip running on the SNES, something previously believed impossible. At the time, the company was seeking development partners for its upcoming Nintendo 64 console, which was then called Project Reality. DMA Design signed a two-game contract—worth several million pounds—and joined Nintendo's "Dream Team" of external partners. When this partnership

6072-566: The ZX81 and ZX Spectrum , which had boosted interest in hobbyist programming in the area. Timex employees could buy subsidised ZX Spectrum units, and the company paid for programming courses at the local Kingsway Technical College . The college also hosted the Kingsway Amateur Computer Club (KACC), where attendees—including Timex employees and local youths—had to bring their computers, usually ZX Spectrum machines. Jones

6210-415: The development of Red Dead Redemption . Take-Two quickly filed a counterclaim and described Benzies's claims as "entirely without merit and in many instances downright bizarre". The claim asserted that, because Benzies had departed Rockstar North without a good cause, he was not entitled to any additional compensation. The New York Supreme Court partially dismissed Benzies's lawsuit in April 2018 because

6348-747: The video game industry . He told the Los Angeles Times : "Someone who was part of the co-creation of that world and those characters isn't getting a credit or a nickel for the work they put into it. Maybe we need unions in the video game industry to be able to protect creators." David Jones (video game developer) David Scott Jones (born October 1965) is a Scottish video game programmer and entrepreneur who co-founded video game developers DMA Design (now Rockstar North) in 1987, Realtime Worlds in 2002, and Cloudgine in 2012. Jones created Lemmings and Grand Theft Auto , which both spawned many successful sequels. He also created

6486-485: The Boulder studio was spun off . Under Harman's continued leadership, it was renamed Devil's Thumb Entertainment . At the time, the studio was developing a remake of Hired Guns for Psygnosis with Hammond as the writer. Being more passionate about this project than Grand Theft Auto , he left DMA Design to work on the remake in a freelance position, which he later said he regretted "ever since". The Hired Guns remake

6624-624: The Commodore Plus/4, which they finished and sold to the publisher Cascade for "a modest fee", while Jones and Kay cooperated on Moonshadow for the ZX Spectrum, which was eventually released as Zone Trooper . Jones and Dailly also worked on The Game With No Name . As Sinclair Research's market share dropped significantly during 1986, the Dundee Timex plant enacted layoffs. Jones accepted a voluntary redundancy for £3,000 ,

6762-550: The Dundee Technology Park. As Kay left DMA Design in 1993 to form Visual Sciences , Jones and Dailly hired Keith Hamilton as a replacement and put him in charge of All New World of Lemmings . This entry focused on larger, more detailed lemmings, which Hamilton and Jones later believed diminished the game's charm. In the same year, Psygnosis released Walker , which remained exclusive to the Amiga, and Hired Guns , which had been created principally by Johnston with

6900-446: The IGDA found that people of color were both underrepresented in senior management roles as well as underpaid in comparison to white developers. Further, because video game developers typically draw from personal experiences in building game characters, this diversity gap has led to few characters of racial minority to be featured as main characters within video games. Minority developers have also been harassed from external groups due to

7038-614: The PlayStation port for Grand Theft Auto , which was largely programmed by Kay and produced by Houser. The success diminished the focus on other games, particularly Space Station Silicon Valley , and a sequel was soon greenlit. Bertelsmann considered BMG Interactive's operations too expensive and decided to ramp down the division entirely. At the same time, Ryan Brant was looking to grow the publishing business of his company, Take-Two Interactive . After coming across BMG Interactive, Houser pitched his vision for game development to Brant. As

SECTION 50

#1732772713615

7176-671: The Scottish Game Alliance, alongside Creative Edge, Digital Animations, Inner Workings, Red Lemon Studios, VIS Interactive , and Visual Sciences. In academics, Jones helped the Dundee Institute of Technology (now called the University of Abertay Dundee) to establish the world-first computer games degree in November 1997, and DMA Design developed games for a game design course at Dundee College in 1998. In

7314-484: The acquisition of Activision Blizzard , stated it supported these unionization efforts. After this acquisition, the employees of Bethesda Game Studios , part of Zenimax under Microsoft, unionized under the Communications Workers of America (CWA) in July 2024. Over 500 employees within Blizzard Entertainment 's World of Warcraft division also unionized with CWA that same month. Sweden presents

7452-869: The adjacent Holyrood Park House, which it had since occupied parts of, for £18.25 million . During 2022, the studio grew to occupy an additional 11,577 square feet (1,075.5 m) of office space in the latter. Video game developer A developer may specialize in specific game engines or specific video game consoles , or may develop for several systems (including personal computers and mobile devices ). Some focus on porting games from one system to another, or translating games from one language to another. Less commonly, some do software development work in addition to games. Most video game publishers maintain development studios (such as Electronic Arts 's EA Canada , Square Enix 's studios, Activision 's Radical Entertainment , Nintendo EPD and Sony's Polyphony Digital and Naughty Dog ). However, since publishing

7590-572: The advent of digital distribution of inexpensive games on game consoles, it is now possible for indie game developers to forge agreements with console manufacturers for broad distribution of their games. Other indie game developers create game software for a number of video-game publishers on several gaming platforms. In recent years this model has been in decline; larger publishers, such as Electronic Arts and Activision, increasingly turn to internal studios (usually former independent developers acquired for their development needs). Video game development

7728-499: The amusement of the office. Kay remarked that a game could be created from this. Jones concurred and thought of a design in which the player should prevent the characters from being killed. Kay wrote a demo before it was passed on to Dailly and later to Jones, who worked out the gameplay foundations with Timmons. The game was named Lemmings upon Kay's suggestion and released in February 1991. It sold 55,000 copies on its first day and

7866-431: The closest equity, making 96 cents for every dollar men made in the same job, while audio professional women had the largest gap, making 68% of what men in the same position made. Increasing the representation of women in the video game industry required breaking a feedback loop of the apparent lack of female representation in the production of video games and in the content of video games. Efforts have been made to provide

8004-505: The company as DMA Design in 1988 in his hometown of Dundee . During his studies, he had developed the game Menace and struck a six-game publishing deal with Psygnosis , which released Menace in October 1988. While making its sequel, Blood Money , Jones dropped out, hired several of his friends—including Mike Dailly , Steve Hammond, and Russell Kay, whom he had met at the Kingsway Amateur Computer Club—and opened

8142-468: The company in early 2000. With three other DMA Design employees, he formed Denki and, in February, Rage Software hired him to lead its new Scotland operations. Jones bought out these operations in 2002 to form Real Time Worlds , which went on to hire many former DMA Design staffers. Rockstar Games released a Dreamcast port of Wild Metal Country , renamed Wild Metal , in February 2000. Under Take-Two, DMA Design ceased creating several games at once and

8280-498: The company name. While "Direct Mind Access" was official briefly, Jones eventually began stating that the abbreviation was short for "Doesn't Mean Anything". He formally founded DMA Design in 1988, when he was 22 years old. Menace was released in October 1988 after 18 months of development. It was DMA Design's debut game and the first game under Psygnosis's Psyclapse label for budget-priced games. Although Jones only received £0.75 for every copy sold, which he retrospectively viewed as

8418-481: The company required that DMA Design began finishing games as quickly as possible, as opposed to Jones's prior methodology of releasing a game only once it is good. Jones received a 5% stake in Gremlin Interactive and became a member of its board of directors . He subsequently moved into the creative director role for DMA Design. In May, the studio had 100 employees. As another result of the acquisition,

SECTION 60

#1732772713615

8556-549: The company's first offices above a former fish and chip shop in 1989. Following the successful 1991 release of Lemmings , the studio rapidly expanded and moved into proper offices, after which Kay left to establish Visual Sciences . Several Lemmings expansions and sequels later, 1994's All New World of Lemmings was DMA Design's final game in the series and its last with Psygnosis. Starting in 1994, DMA Design partnered with Nintendo and BMG Interactive for several projects, many of which stalled or were cancelled. Jones sold

8694-562: The concept used in Menace . DMA created a third game in 1991, Lemmings , which was commercially and critically successful, resulting in awards including winning European Game of the Year twice. Over the next two years Lemmings sold over 2 million copies, making Jones, 25 years old at release and married with a child, wealthy and famous. DMA Design created several more games over the next few years, but Jones spent time on developing an idea for

8832-416: The console manufacturer (such as Rare or Naughty Dog ). Whether by purchasing an independent studio or by founding a new team, the acquisition of a first-party developer involves a huge financial investment on the part of the console manufacturer, which is wasted if the developer fails to produce a hit game on time. However, using first-party developers saves the cost of having to make royalty payments on

8970-508: The console. This established the use of licensing fees as a model for third-party development that persists into the present. The licensing fee approach was further enforced by Nintendo when it decided to allow other third-party developers to make games for the Famicom console, setting a 30% licensing fee that covered game cartridge manufacturing costs and development fees. The 30% licensing fee for third-party developers has also persisted to

9108-405: The core of a more than 1,000-strong team worldwide, including several other Rockstar Games studios. The core development took roughly three years, and the game was released in September 2013. The game broke the records for the best-selling and highest-grossing video game within one day and the fastest entertainment property to reach $ 1 billion in revenue at three days. With continuing sales and

9246-603: The deal with BMG Interactive was finalised, such that DMA Design refused to pay the marketing firm its share of the deal. The publishing agreement covered Race'n'Chase , Space Station Silicon Valley , Tanktics , and Covert , the latter a stealth game in the style of Metal Gear . With the acquired funds, DMA Design intended to expand its offices and increase its 40-strong headcount with 42 additional hires, quickly growing to 130 people. The company took over an additional 5,000 square feet (460 m) of office space and expanded to two adjacent buildings, therein also setting up

9384-404: The deal with BMG Interactive. The judge opined that the marketing firm had been pivotal in the deal being reached and that DMA Design had taken a "rather cynical action" by excluding it from the negotiations. He therefore asserted that the actions did constitute breach of contract, although the damages were to be assessed in another hearing. Also in 1997, DMA Design was one of the founding members of

9522-444: The developer if the game is not meeting expectations. When each milestone is completed (and accepted), the publisher pays the developer an advance on royalties . Successful developers may maintain several teams working on different games for different publishers. Generally, however, third-party developers tend to be small, close-knit teams. Third-party game development is a volatile sector, since small developers may depend on income from

9660-417: The developers are the publisher's employees, their interests align with those of the publisher; the publisher may spend less effort ensuring that the developer's decisions do not enrich the developer at the publisher's expense. Activision in 1979 became the first third-party video game developer. When four Atari, Inc. programmers left the company following its sale to Warner Communications , partially over

9798-400: The development of Grand Theft Auto III , DMA Design again expanded rapidly, forming a core team of 20 people for the game and engaging "dozens more" in some capacity. The total team encompassed 60 people. The team retained the focus on a mostly unconstrained open world from the prior two games while introducing fully 3D graphics and a third-person view . With much of the game planned out from

9936-662: The direction of Andrew Semple, the branch launched with 25 people. While the Edinburgh location continued to develop a 3D Grand Theft Auto game, now modelled after Driver , the Dundee office was working on an expansion for Grand Theft Auto 2 set in Miami , of which the former was ultimately prioritised and became Grand Theft Auto III . Jones was the last member of the original DMA Design team to work on this game. However, unhappy with his studio being owned by an overseas company and failing to see eye-to-eye with Take-Two, he departed

10074-591: The disappointing critical and commercial reception to APB. Jones was the keynote speaker for the World Cyber Games in 2004 where he said that he considered mainstream multiplatform gaming to be the next big thing, and for the 2009 Develop Conference in Brighton. In 2012 David Jones started work on ChronoBlade , a Facebook action-RPG game, with Stieg Hedlund as part of San Francisco-based development team nWay. In 2012 he co-founded Cloudgine ,

10212-467: The entertainment industry (such as films and television ) require long working hours and dedication from their employees, such as willingness to relocate and/or required to develop games that do not appeal to their personal taste. The creative rewards of work in the entertainment business attracts labor to the industry, creating a competitive labor market that demands a high level of commitment and performance from employees. Industry communities, such as

10350-464: The exclusive rights to the game worldwide. Body Harvest and Space Station Silicon Valley were released in late 1998 but were scarcely marketed, leading to meagre sales. Houser and some of his former BMG Interactive colleagues formed Rockstar Games as a publishing label for Take-Two in December 1998. The newborn company commissioned its internal studio, Rockstar Canada , to develop two expansions for

10488-472: The financially stricken studio to Gremlin Interactive in April 1997, which also led to the spin-off of DMA Design's satellite studio in Boulder, Colorado , and Hammond's departure. After BMG Interactive released DMA Design's Grand Theft Auto in November 1997 to commercial success, Take-Two Interactive bought the publisher and the game's intellectual property to form Rockstar Games in December 1998. At

10626-469: The first employee in 1989 and began working on a Commodore 64 conversion of Menace . Hammond joined second on a part-time time basis as he continued his education, followed shortly by Kay and Brian Watson, one of Jones's university friends. The Menace sequel, Blood Money , was released in April 1989. It sold 40,000 copies. Gary Timmons joined the studio shortly after the game was completed, while Dailly developed its Commodore 64 version and began working on

10764-516: The first video game-specific union, Game Workers Unite Australia, was formed in December 2021 under Professionals Australia to become active in 2022. In Canada, in a historic move, video game workers in Edmonton unanimously voted to unionize for the first time in June 2022. In January 2023, after not being credited in The Last of Us HBO adaptation, Bruce Straley called for unionization of

10902-406: The game's creative director and producer . BMG Interactive's production team, including the head of development Sam Houser , was hands-off during the development. Body Harvest progressed slowly and faced numerous delays, such that it missed its intended launch with the Nintendo 64. Kid Kirby and the climbing-themed action game Zenith also stalled, and Nintendo cancelled the former following

11040-404: The gaming industry, while a 2017 IGDA survey found that the female demographic in game development had risen to about 20%. Taking into account that a 2017 ESA survey found 41% of video game players were female, this represented a significant gender gap in game development. The male-dominated industry, most who have grown up playing video games and are part of the video game culture , can create

11178-457: The industry by working long hours. Because crunch time tends to come from a combination of corporate practices as well as peer influence, the term "crunch culture" is often used to discuss video game development settings where crunch time may be seen as the norm rather than the exception. The use of crunch time as a workplace standard gained attention first in 2004, when Erin Hoffman exposed

11316-431: The lack of respect that the new management gave to programmers, they used their knowledge of how Atari VCS game cartridges were programmed to create their own games for the system, founding Activision in 1979 to sell these. Atari took legal action to try to block the sale of these games, but the companies ultimately settled, with Activision agreeing to pay a portion of their sales as a license fee to Atari for developing for

11454-651: The lead-up to the debut of Race'n'Chase , now renamed Grand Theft Auto , BMG Interactive hired the publicist Max Clifford , who set out to market the game by having it garner negative publicity. Baron Campbell of Croy warned of the game at the United Kingdom's House of Lords in May 1997, and several tabloid newspapers called for it to be banned in the country. Grand Theft Auto was released in November 1997 and, despite mixed reviews, quickly sold 500,000 units and generated £25 million . Visual Sciences developed

11592-540: The low sales of the Super NES Mouse. Furthermore, the American division of BMG Interactive regularly pushed for Race'n'Chase to be cancelled because the team kept missing development milestones. The game was never the sole focus of the studio, and several staffers believed Body Harvest would be a bigger hit. With DMA Design struggling financially, Jones kept agreeing to game projects solely to receive sign-on bonuses and with no plans to complete them. At one point,

11730-442: The meantime, the studio contributed to Rockstar San Diego's Red Dead Redemption in 2010 and Team Bondi 's L.A. Noire in 2011. For Max Payne 3 in 2012, Rockstar North assisted a number of other Rockstar Games studios collectively credited as "Rockstar Studios". Immediately following the completion of Grand Theft Auto IV , Rockstar North began preliminary work on Grand Theft Auto V . Rockstar North's 360 employees formed

11868-606: The monicker " Acme ". The game featured graphics by the demoscene member Tony Smith, with whom he communicated by post, and sounds Dailly and Hammond recorded from a Salamander machine at a local arcade . At the Personal Computer World Show trade event, Jones met with representatives of several publishers—including Gremlin Graphics , Hewson Consultants , Ocean Software , and the nascent Psygnosis —to demonstrate CopperCon1 . While all reacted positively, Hewson Consultants and its Andrew Braybrook were

12006-504: The most enthusiastic about the game and quickly agreed to publish it. However, after it was showcased in the Popular Computing Weekly magazine with the title Zynaps , Jones wanted to avoid his game only becoming the Amiga version of the ZX Spectrum game and walked away from the agreement. Instead, he turned to Psygnosis, visiting its Liverpool offices in 1987 and agreeing to a six-game publishing deal. CopperCon1

12144-559: The movement again called out for the industry to unionize. The movement argued that Telltale had not given any warning to its 250 employees let go, having hired additional staff as recently as a week prior, and left them without pensions or health-care options; it was further argued that the studio considered this a closure rather than layoffs, as to get around failure to notify required by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 preceding layoffs. The situation

12282-448: The nature of the video game culture. The industry also is recognized to have an ageism issue, discriminating against the hiring and retention of older developers. A 2016 IGDA survey found only 3% of developers were over 50 years old, while at least two-thirds were between 20 and 34; these numbers show a far lower average age compared to the U.S. national average of about 41.9 that same year. While discrimination by age in hiring practices

12420-436: The new ownership, Gremlin Interactive published DMA Design's Wild Metal Country in May and Tanktics in June. As Infogrames was more conservative and sought to produce child-friendly games, it did not wish to hold on to any assets related to Grand Theft Auto . Take-Two Interactive bought DMA Design from the publisher in September 1999 for the nominal price of £1 while assuming US$ 12.3 million in debt. The acquisition

12558-540: The news, there have typically been followup discussions towards the potential to form a union. A survey performed by the International Game Developers Association in 2014 found that more than half of the 2,200 developers surveyed favored unionization. A similar survey of over 4,000 game developers run by the Game Developers Conference in early 2019 found that 47% of respondents felt the video game industry should unionize. In 2016, voice actors in

12696-529: The newspaper group The Scotsman , for which the building had been built in 1999. In the same year, the studio began receiving tax credits from the newly established Video Games Tax Relief scheme set up by the government of the United Kingdom . According to the investigative think tank TaxWatch UK, the studio received £80 million by 2020, 37% of the scheme's total payout of which £37.6 million in 2019 alone, while having not paid any corporation tax since 2009. In response, Rockstar Games stated that

12834-581: The original game, Grand Theft Auto: London 1969 and Grand Theft Auto: London 1961 , which were released in 1999. In March 1999, after less than two years on the stock market, the poor sales of Body Harvest contributed to dire financials at Gremlin Interactive that forced it into a £24 million takeover by the French publisher Infogrames . During this year, Dailly left the company to join Kay at Visual Sciences as its head of research and development. Under

12972-482: The planned end of his sabbatical in April 2015, his building access had been disabled and the office manager ordered him off the premises. The lawsuit stated that the three "Rockstar Principals"—himself and the Houser brothers—had established a shell corporation to evenly share profits and eventually leave Take-Two. Additionally, Benzies accused Sam Houser of having built a sexually charged culture and ineptly handling

13110-694: The present, being a de facto rate used for most digital storefronts for third-party developers to offer their games on the platform. In recent years, larger publishers have acquired several third-party developers. While these development teams are now technically "in-house", they often continue to operate in an autonomous manner (with their own culture and work practices). For example, Activision acquired Raven (1997); Neversoft (1999), which merged with Infinity Ward in 2014; Z-Axis (2001); Treyarch (2001); Luxoflux (2002); Shaba (2002); Infinity Ward (2003) and Vicarious Visions (2005). All these developers continue operating much as they did before acquisition,

13248-414: The primary differences being exclusivity and financial details. Publishers tend to be more forgiving of their own development teams going over budget (or missing deadlines) than third-party developers. A developer may not be the primary entity creating a piece of software, usually providing an external software tool which helps organize (or use) information for the primary software product. Such tools may be

13386-413: The prior Dundee location was closed. Grand Theft Auto III , the first Grand Theft Auto game presented fully in 3D, was released in 2001 and sold 6 million units in one year. Considered genre-defining, the game gave rise to a number of Grand Theft Auto clones . Take-Two integrated DMA Design with Rockstar Games as Rockstar Studios in March 2002, which was renamed Rockstar North in May. Since then,

13524-453: The production of a sequel, Manhunt 2 , which entered into production in January 2004. Rockstar North's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was given one year of additional development time over Vice City , which allowed the team to rework core parts of the gameplay and visuals. It had a budget of less than $ 10 million . By the end of the game's production, Rockstar North had relocated to offices on Calton Square in Edinburgh. San Andreas

13662-482: The profit-sharing agreement did not guarantee equal pay for the Rockstar Principals, although he remained entitled to some royalties. Take-Two later accused Benzies of poaching employees from Rockstar North for his newer studio, Royal Circus Games, and argued that the company's name and trademark had been deliberately chosen to have consumers confuse the two entities. Royal Circus Games was renamed Build

13800-669: The project. Jones consequently presented a prototype of the game, which became known as Race'n'Chase , to BMG Interactive , the recently formed games arm of Bertelsmann . The two companies signed a £3.4 million contract in March 1995, wherein the studio would develop four games for the publisher. According to The Liaison and Promotion Company, Jones had not informed the firm of the impending deal, instead claiming he would partner with another company. such as Virgin Interactive Entertainment . DMA Design and The Liaison and Promotion Company then severed ties just before

13938-530: The publisher in North America. For Tanktics , the North American publishing rights were sold to Interplay Entertainment . DMA Design further negotiated back the rights to Attack! and Clan Wars from GT Interactive. In July 1997, Lord Penrose at the Court of Session presided over The Liaison and Promotion Company's £1.5 million lawsuit against DMA Design over breach of contract in relation to

14076-429: The publisher's wishes generally override those of the developer. Work for hire studios solely execute the publishers vision. The business arrangement between the developer and publisher is governed by a contract, which specifies a list of milestones intended to be delivered over a period of time. By updating its milestones, the publisher verifies that work is progressing quickly enough to meet its deadline and can direct

14214-415: The publishers. While this had some effects on a few games within the industry, it brought to the forefront the question of whether video game developers should unionize. A grassroots movement, Game Workers Unite , was established around 2017 to discuss and debate issues related to unionization of game developers. The group came to the forefront during the March 2018 Game Developers Conference by holding

14352-424: The same time, Body Harvest ' s underperformance led Infogrames to purchase Gremlin Interactive, with DMA Design sold to Take-Two in September 1999. The studio was aligned with Rockstar Games, which soon released Grand Theft Auto 2 . Amid these changes, Dailly left for Visual Sciences, while Jones founded Denki and Real Time Worlds . A few months after an Edinburgh branch was established for DMA Design,

14490-426: The same time, the studio commenced the production of a stealth game called Agent (codenamed Jimmy in reference to James Bond ). A game with the same name and concept had previously been cancelled at the sister studio Rockstar San Diego , and Benzies was interested in furthering the idea. The studio was split evenly between the two projects, although Grand Theft Auto IV was soon prioritised over Agent . The game

14628-418: The severance pay towards an Amiga 1000 computer with which he developed indie game Menace , under the company name DMA Design along with friends Russell Kay, Steve Hammond and Mike Dailly . Releasing in 1988, the game sold 15,000 copies and earned him £20,000, which he used to buy a car. DMA Design expanded and went on to make a second game, Blood Money , which Jones saw as a "further development" of

14766-433: The start, the development progressed smoothly. Upon its release for the PlayStation 2 in late 2001, it became the best-selling game of that year, as well as the second-best in 2002. The game sold 6 million copies within one year and more than 15 million in total, exceeding the development team's expectations. Grand Theft Auto III ' s approach to 3D open worlds has been referred to as genre-defining and inspired

14904-566: The studio and 1,000. Benzies estimated the budget at $ 100 million . Upon its April 2008 release, the game broke the record for the highest revenue for a game within one day at 3.6 million copies, generating $ 310 million . At the 2008 Spike Video Game Awards, the game won "game of the year" and earned Rockstar North a nomination for "best studio". The studio followed the game up with two expansion packs— The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony  —which were later bundled as Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City . In

15042-417: The studio had seven or eight projects in development at the same time. In the latter half of 1996, GT Interactive signed with DMA Design for Attack! and Clan Wars , despite neither draft having a proper team assigned. Jones also sold the rights to Grand Theft Auto to BMG Interactive to help keep the studio afloat. In November 1996, DMA Design opened a satellite studio in Boulder, Colorado . Anthony Harman

15180-628: The studio has continued the Grand Theft Auto series with Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002), Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004), Grand Theft Auto IV (2008), and Grand Theft Auto V (2013), as well as a number of smaller games in the franchise. Rockstar North also created Manhunt in 2003 and collaborated with other Rockstar Games studios on Manhunt 2 (2007), Red Dead Redemption (2010), L.A. Noire (2011), Max Payne 3 (2012), and Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018). Having frequently played Space Invaders in his youth,

15318-429: The studio, took over his responsibilities. Benzies sued Rockstar Games, Take-Two, Sam Houser, and Dan Houser on 12 April 2016, claiming that the companies had withheld $ 150 million in royalty payments following his departure. In the suit, he claimed that the Houser brothers had persuaded him to take a six-month sabbatical and fired his son and several friends during this absence. As Benzies tried to return after

15456-599: The success of its online multiplayer counterpart, Grand Theft Auto Online , the game grossed an estimated $ 6 billion by 2018, making it the most profitable entertainment product of all time. Its 200 million copies sold as of March 2024 make it the second-best-selling game ever and contribute to the more than 425 million total sales of the series. In 2014, Rockstar North took over 75,000 square feet (7,000 m) of office space in Barclay House on Holyrood Road in Edinburgh. The studio replaced as tenants

15594-545: The target of sexual harassment. This can be coupled from similar harassment from external groups, such as during the 2014 Gamergate controversy . Major investigations into allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct that went unchecked by management, as well as discrimination by employers, have been brought up against Riot Games , Ubisoft and Activision Blizzard in the late 2010s and early 2020s, alongside smaller studios and individual developers. However, while other entertainment industries have had similar exposure through

15732-411: The tax credits had enabled higher investments into the country, while The Association for UK Interactive Entertainment reported that the scheme had brought about a fourfold return on investment . Benzies, until then the studio head , went on a sabbatical in September 2014. He did not return and was announced as having left Rockstar North in January 2016. Garbut and Rob Nelson, both art directors for

15870-516: The time and the platformer Cutiepoo did not make adequate progress after one year of work by the freelance programmer Tony Colgan. Jones further put aside his game Walker as he found he could not achieve his vision for it and stopped working on the Monster Cartridge, a cheat cartridge for the Amiga, after another such product was released first. The programmer Ian Dunlop and artist Neill Glancy, working remotely from Edinburgh on

16008-484: The toxic nature of the video game culture. This racial diversity issue has similar ties to the gender one, and similar methods to result both have been suggested, such as improving grade school education, developing games that appeal beyond the white, male gamer stereotype, and identifying toxic behavior in both video game workplaces and online communities that perpetuate discrimination against gender and race. In regards to LGBT and other gender or sexual orientations,

16146-509: The unicycle protagonist from Pixar's 1987 animated short film Red's Dream . The judge ruled in Pixar's favour and the two companies agreed that Nintendo would cease the production of Unirally copies while Pixar was to receive a Nintendo 64 game development kit . Despite the ruling, the game sold 300,000 copies. DMA Design continued working with Nintendo on Kid Kirby , a spin-off in Nintendo's Kirby franchise made by Colgan after requesting

16284-487: The use of crunch time at Electronic Arts , a situation known as the "EA Spouses" case. A similar "Rockstar Spouses" case gained further attention in 2010 over working conditions at Rockstar San Diego . Since then, there has generally been negative perception of crunch time from most of the industry as well as from its consumers and other media. Game development had generally been a predominately male workforce. In 1989, according to Variety , women constituted only 3% of

16422-508: The video game industry typically shares the same demographics as with the larger population based on a 2005 IGDA survey. Those in the LGBT community do not find workplace issues with their identity, though work to improve the representation of LGBT themes within video games in the same manner as with racial minorities. However, LGBT developers have also come under the same type of harassment from external groups like women and racial minorities due to

16560-678: The video game industry. Whereas some video game employees believe they should follow the craft-based model used by SAG-AFTRA which would unionize based on job function, others feel an industry-wide union, regardless of job position, would be better. Starting in 2021, several smaller game studios in the United States began efforts to unionize. These mostly involved teams doing quality assurance rather than developers. These studios included three QA studios under Blizzard Entertainment : Raven Software , Blizzard Albany , and Proletariat; and Zenimax Media 's QA team. Microsoft , which had previously acquired Zenimax and announced plans to acquire Blizzard via

16698-561: The wake of this success, the studio developed Oh No! More Lemmings (1991), Lemmings 2: The Tribes (1993), and All New World of Lemmings (1994). It also made the Christmas-themed Holiday Lemmings to be distributed for free on covermounts in 1991 and 1992, before Psygnosis made it a commercial release for 1993 and 1994. By November 1992, DMA Design had grown to 22 staff, of which 10 were former classmates of Jones, and relocated to proper offices at

16836-504: The workforce in video games is estimated to be from contract labor. Similar to other tech industries, video game developers are typically not unionized . This is a result of the industry being driven more by creativity and innovation rather than production, the lack of distinction between management and employees in the white-collar area, and the pace at which the industry moves that makes union actions difficult to plan out. However, when situations related to crunch time become prevalent in

16974-535: Was acquiring at the time, under the combined brand of "Broadband Studios". Pixel Broadband Studios was developing online-focused game technology, such that the combined Broadband Studios would have increasingly focused on this market. However, the merger was quickly cancelled and DMA Design was instead integrated more closely with Rockstar Games. Jim Woods, who had become the DMA Design's managing director by this time, resigned as he wished to stay in Dundee. During

17112-402: Was announced in 1998 as using Unreal Engine and targeting the Nintendo 64. Devil's Thumb Entertainment also developed Mike Piazza's StrikeZone and Tides of War for GT Interactive. In March 1999, the studio was acquired and absorbed by the developer VR-1, also based in Boulder. The Hired Guns remake was never released. Two months after DMA Design's acquisition, Gremlin Interactive became

17250-404: Was announced in April 1994, DMA Design was only Nintendo's second partner for the platform. Using these funds, the studio grew to occupy 2,500 square feet (230 m) of office space at the Dundee Technology Park and spent around £250,000 outfitting all rooms with high-end devices. The partnership also led DMA Design to cease developing for the 3DO. The studio steered clear of other consoles, like

17388-503: Was announced on 29 September and DMA Design was aligned with Rockstar Games, which Houser described as a "perfect match". During these ownership and managerial changes, several projects were cancelled, including Attack! , Grand Theft Auto and Wild Metal Country for the Nintendo 64, and an Unreal version for the 64DD . At the time of Take-Two's acquisition, DMA Design was working on GTA 3D and Grand Theft Auto: Online Crime World . Grand Theft Auto 2 , published by Rockstar Games,

17526-668: Was argued to be "exploitive", as Telltale had been known to force its employees to frequently work under "crunch time" to deliver its games. By the end of 2018, a United Kingdom trade union, Game Workers Unite UK, an affiliate of the Game Workers Unite movement, had been legally established. Following Activision Blizzard 's financial report for the previous quarter in February 2019, the company said that they would be laying off around 775 employees (about 8% of their workforce) despite having record profits for that quarter. Further calls for unionization came from this news, including

17664-402: Was impressed with DMA Design's multi-use 3DMA game engine and wanted the two companies to cooperate on research and development . It also expected DMA Design to become profitable within two years of the acquisition. Gremlin Interactive introduced several project management methods—including Microsoft Project and Gantt charts —that the studio perceived as unnecessary bureaucracy. Additionally,

17802-455: Was installed as the studio's manager, and it had 27 employees by April 1997. Games will always be here. ... If you do good games, they'll always sell well. What I like is that people are not daft anymore. ... There was a time when you could sell anything in this business. Anything. That was more disappointing – when the business was bigger it was because of that. Times are hard now, making people focus more on quality and innovation which

17940-509: Was instead made to focus on only few large projects at a time. Many staffers felt at odds with this shift, as it diminished the prior atmosphere they felt was driven by creativity. The publisher closed the Dundee studio in March 2000, relocating many of the 35 staffers to Edinburgh and laying off the rest. The move was intended to be part of a merger between DMA Design, Rockstar Games, and the Tel Aviv -based Pixel Broadband Studios, which Take-Two

18078-489: Was released in October 1999 and quickly sold more than 1 million copies, the first Take-Two game to do so. Shortly thereafter, DMA Design established a satellite studio in the Leith area of Edinburgh to house the former teams of Body Harvest and Space Station Silicon Valley . Among those who relocated there were Leslie Benzies , Aaron Garbut, and Obbe Vermeij, all of whom had worked on Space Station Silicon Valley . Under

18216-648: Was released in October 2004 and, within four days, sold 2.1 million copies, 45% above Vice City ' s sales in the same time span, and generated $ 101 million . Alongside several other year-end accolades, San Andreas was named the " game of the year " at the 2004 Spike Video Game Awards and 2005 Golden Joystick Awards . Grand Theft Auto III , Vice City , and San Andreas were bundled as Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy in 2006. By 2008, they had attained sales of 14.5 million, 17.5 million, and 21.5 million, respectively. After San Andreas , Rockstar North began producing Grand Theft Auto IV . At

18354-727: Was renamed Draconia , which was ultimately changed to Menace because the name was too similar to Draconus . Jones also agreed to bring Psygnosis's Ballistix from the Amiga to the Commodore 64 , for which he engaged Dailly and Hammond. In his search for a company name to replace the already taken "Acme", Jones discussed alternatives with the members of the DIT's computer club in 1988. Among others, "Milliard", "Visual Voyage", and "Alias Smith and Jones" (in reference to Menace ' s artist) were floated, and Jones finally settled on "DMA Design". The abbreviation "DMA" stood for " direct memory access " in Amiga manuals but carried no meaning in

18492-523: Was renamed Rockstar Studios, which Houser described as the studio's "final integration" with Rockstar Games. The name was revised to Rockstar North in May. Vice City was completed in one year and released in late 2002. For its work on the game, Rockstar North won the "best in-house development studio" and "creativity" awards at the first Develop Industry Excellence Awards in August 2003. Following Vice City ' s release, Rockstar North began work on Z ,

18630-732: Was soon after acquired by Gremlin Interactive , starting a chain of purchases that resulted in the studio becoming Rockstar North . Jones stayed with the company through 1999 and Grand Theft Auto 2 before leaving. In 2000 Jones founded and led the Dundee studio of Rage Software , Rage Games (Scotland) Limited, where he developed the PC title Mobile Forces . Jones also co-founded Denki who developed Go Go Beckham for Rage. Rage ceased trading after bankruptcy. In 2002 Jones founded Realtime Worlds , who developed Crackdown (2007) and APB: All Points Bulletin (2010). Despite receiving funding of $ 100m Realtime Worlds entered liquidation in 2010 after

18768-463: Was still announced in 2009 as an exclusive title for the PlayStation 3 but was never released. Its trademark was abandoned in 2018, and the listing was removed from Rockstar Games's website in 2021. Rockstar North worked closely with Rockstar Leeds on three Grand Theft Auto games for handheld game consoles : Liberty City Stories , Vice City Stories , and Chinatown Wars . Grand Theft Auto IV ' s production encompassed 220 people at

18906-483: Was swiftly brought to other regions and platforms. Jon Dye, another former KACC attendee, was hired later that year to bring the game to the ZX Spectrum. Lemmings had 20 million lifetime sales across 21 platforms. At 25 years old, Jones became a millionaire and subsequently bought two Ferrari luxury cars. The company rapidly expanded and began working on several additional projects. As Psygnosis sought DMA Design to produce Lemmings expansion packs and sequels in

19044-569: Was the oldest member at the KACC, where he soon befriended Steve Hammond and Russell Kay. Mike Dailly joined the club at the recommendation of a friend in 1984 with the Commodore Plus/4 he had received for Christmas. He was the youngest attendee at 14 years old. The quartet bonded over their shared interest in creating games instead of playing or copying existing ones. During their time at the KACC, Dailly and Hammond developed Freek Out for

#614385