Everything about Rockstar North totally explained
Rockstar North Ltd. (formerly
DMA Design Limited) is a
developer of computer and video games based in
Edinburgh,
Scotland. The company is a part of
Rockstar Games which is owned by
Take Two Interactive. It is the primary developer of the
Grand Theft Auto series, including
Grand Theft Auto III,, and, which are four of the best-selling games on
sixth-generation consoles; in its earlier guise as DMA, it was responsible for originating the
Lemmings franchise.
History
Late 1980s
DMA Design was founded in 1988 by
David Jones, Russell Kay, Steve Hammond and Mike Dailly in
Dundee,
Scotland. The name DMA was taken from the
Amiga programming manuals (where it stood for
Direct Memory Access) and the initials were later '
retrofitted' so that they briefly stood for Direct Mind Access (DMA was also jokingly referred to as "Doesn't Mean Anything" by a company founder). In 1988 DMA signed with UK label
Psygnosis and developed
Menace and
Blood Money –
side-scrolling space shooters which gained attention from gamers and critics for both their high-quality presentation and difficulty. As with all the company's early games,
Menace and
Blood Money debuted on the
Amiga, one of the leading platforms for videogames in Europe between the late 1980s and the early 1990s. A
Commodore 64 port was published immediately after, later followed by
DOS and
Atari ST versions.
Early 1990s
DMA's major breakthrough came with 1990's
Lemmings, a simple puzzle game that sold over 20 million copies on 21 different systems. It debuted on the
Amiga and it was available on other major platforms like the
NES and
Macintosh, and obscure formats as the
FM Towns and the
CD-i. Much of DMA's time over the next few years was devoted to
Lemmings follow-ups (
Oh No! More Lemmings,,
All New World of Lemmings, and two Christmas-themed
Holiday Lemmings special editions). They also released two original titles: 1993's
Walker (a side-scrolling
mech shooter) and 1994's
Hired Guns (a first-person tactical shooter game with a four-way split screen). Other Lemmings sequels and spinoffs, such as
Lemmings Paintball and
Lemmings 3D, have appeared over the years, but these were produced without DMA.
1994's
Uniracers, a 2D
platform racer featuring riderless unicycles was the company's first game to debut on a console (the
Super Nintendo). Published by
Nintendo, it also marked DMA's first game without
Psygnosis, which got bought out by
Sony in 1993. This was the beginning of what would be a long and often bumpy relationship with the Japanese console giant. After spending some time experimenting with various next-generation consoles (particularly the
3DO), DMA was asked by Nintendo to join their "Dream Team" of developers for the upcoming Ultra 64 system (later renamed
Nintendo 64), alongside such other developers as
Rare, Paradigm,
Midway Games, and
LucasArts.
Under this arrangement, DMA would produce an N64-exclusive title that Nintendo would publish. The result of this collaboration was
Body Harvest, a third-person 3D vehicular action game with a storyline about aliens arriving on Earth to harvest humans for food. Nintendo requested a number of major overhauls, such as the addition of puzzle and role-playing elements, to make the game more appealing to the Japanese market. The game underwent numerous delays, and Nintendo finally decided to drop their publishing plans. Midway picked up the rights and finally released it in 1998, almost three years after the game was first shown. Reaction was mostly favourable, in particular for the game's innovation and free-roaming gameplay, although a few gamers criticized the graphics.
In the interim, the company released (through the short-lived BMG Interactive label)
Grand Theft Auto for the PC and
PlayStation, which applied the
Body Harvest play mechanism of allowing control of any vehicle in the environment to a top-down 2D game of cops-and-robbers. The game put the player in the role of a petty hood who works his way up through the criminal ranks in three fictional US cities; Liberty City, Vice City, and San Andreas. Despite its undetailed retro graphics and tongue-in-cheek humour, GTA (as it was soon known) attracted controversy for its violence, with the
Daily Mail calling for an outright ban. The uproar no doubt contributed in some part to making GTA a success.
DMA's second N64 title,
Space Station Silicon Valley, was yet another take on the multiple vehicles concept, this time in a 3D
platforming environment and with robotic animals such as hovering
sheep and turret-equipped
turtles – instead of cars and trucks.
Late 1990s
In 1997, DMA was bought by British publisher
Gremlin Interactive, with Jones becoming Creative Director of both companies. Gremlin published two DMA titles – the UK release of
Body Harvest and the PC version of
Wild Metal Country, a tank combat game with a complex control scheme and realistic physics. In 1999 Gremlin was acquired by French publisher
Infogrames for £24 million. Complicating this sale was the pre-existing deal between DMA and BMG Interactive, which had published the first version of Grand Theft Auto, and by 1999 itself had gone through some complex financial moves, becoming
Rockstar Games, an internal label of publisher
Take-Two Interactive.
Infogrames sold DMA Design to Take Two. Rockstar published the
Dreamcast version of
Wild Metal Country (retitled simply
Wild Metal) and
Grand Theft Auto 2 for the PC, PlayStation and Dreamcast. Prior to DMA becoming part of Rockstar, Jones left, setting up a new development studio in Dundee as a subsidiary of
Rage Software. Through a management buy-out, this later became
Real Time Worlds.
DMA had several announced projects that were subsequently cancelled in mid-development: Nintendo 64 ports of
Wild Metal Country and the original GTA;
Clan Wars (a real-time 3D castle building and siege game set in medieval Scotland);
Attack! (a caveman-themed platformer for the N64); and a port of
Epic Games' PC hit
Unreal for the
Nintendo 64 disk drive.
2000s
Whereas
GTA2 had been an incremental improvement on the original, keeping the top-down 2D perspective and adding a few new features, 2001's
Grand Theft Auto III brought the series into 3D. It was the first high profile game to use
middleware technology; in this case Criterion Software's
RenderWare graphics engine. It became the
PlayStation 2's biggest system seller in both the U.S. and Europe;
Sony, realising that the game was a sure-fire success, paid Rockstar to keep it a PS2 exclusive for some time. Rockstar bought DMA outright, renaming the company "Rockstar North" in early 2002.
That same year a PC version of
GTA III was released, as well as for the PS2, which retained the engine and core gameplay of GTA3 while adding a number of refinements (plus a roster of top Hollywood voice talent). In 2003, the company released a PC port of
Vice City, as well as a two-pack of both
GTA III and
Vice City for
Microsoft's
Xbox console (ported by
Rockstar Vienna).
Manhunt was released for the PS2 in 2003. The game is a violent stealth adventure in which a death-row inmate must flee killers. Rockstar North released for the PS2 in October
2004, and ports to Xbox and PC followed in 2005. The studio has Currently Completed work on
Grand Theft Auto IV for
PlayStation 3 and
Xbox 360. It was due to be released on the
PlayStation 3 and
Xbox 360 in October
2007, but on
August 2 2007, the game's release was delayed until
April 29 2008. Its release was met with critical praise, and GTA IV holds the top two spots on gamerankings and sold over 6 million copies at launch.
Rockstar North is continuing work on
Grand Theft Auto IV in the form of two pieces of episodic content for the
Xbox 360.
, a new installment for
PlayStation Portable, was released in October 2005. It was developed by
Rockstar Leeds, under Rockstar North's supervision. It has been ported to the
PlayStation 2 and features a slightly better framerate and draw distance than its PSP counterpart. A second PSP
Grand Theft Auto title,, was also developed by Rockstar Leeds, under Rockstar North's supervision for PSP, and released in October 2006. It was also ported to the
PlayStation 2.
Games
As DMA Design:
- Menace (1988) (Amiga, ST and PC)
- Ballistix (1989) (ports to MSDOS, C64, TG16)
- Blood Money (1989) (Amiga, ST and C64)
- Lemmings (1990) (Amiga, CDTV, MS-DOS, ST, Spectrum, CD-I, Lynx)
- Oh No! More Lemmings (1991) (Amiga, ST, MS-DOS)
- Walker (1993) (Amiga)
- Hired Guns (1993) (Amiga, MS-DOS)
- Holiday Lemmings 1993 (1993) (MS-DOS)
- (1993) (Amiga, MS-DOS, SNES)
- All New World of Lemmings (1994) (Amiga, MS-DOS, 3DO) (published in the U.S. as The Lemmings Chronicles)
- Holiday Lemmings 1994 (1994) (MS-DOS)
- Unirally (1994) (SNES) (published in the U.S. as Uniracers)
- Grand Theft Auto (1997) (MS-DOS, PC, PSX, GBC)
- Body Harvest (1998) (N64)
- Space Station Silicon Valley (1998) (N64)
- (1999) (PC, PSX) - Expansion Pack for GTA
- (1999) (PC) - Free Expansion Pack for GTA: London 1969
- Tanktics (1999)
- Wild Metal Country (1999) (PC, Dreamcast)
- Grand Theft Auto 2 (1999) (PC, PSX, Dreamcast, GBC)
- Grand Theft Auto III (2001) (PS2, Xbox, PC)
As Rockstar North:
(2002) (PS2, PC, Xbox)
Manhunt (2003) (PS2, PC, Xbox)
(2004) (PS2, PC, Xbox)
(2005) (PSP, PS2) (with Rockstar Leeds)
(2006) (PSP, PS2) (with Rockstar Leeds)
Manhunt 2 (2007) (PS2, PSP, Wii) (with Rockstar London, Rockstar Leeds and Rockstar Toronto)
Grand Theft Auto IV (2008) (PS3 and Xbox 360)Further Information
Get more info on 'Rockstar North'.
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