Rockstar Games

Rockstar Games was born in December 1998, carved out of BMG Interactive after Take-Two Interactive bought the publisher's assets for 1.85 million shares. Five people made the move from London to New York City to start the new label: brothers Sam and Dan Houser, Jamie King, Terry Donovan, and Gary Foreman. From a tiny office in the Empire State Building, they set out to build something different.

What followed was a string of games that redefined what the medium could do. Grand Theft Auto III (2001) dropped players into a living, breathing Liberty City and changed open-world design forever. The series kept pushing further with Vice City's neon-soaked 80s, San Andreas's three-city sprawl, and GTA IV's grimier, more personal story. Then came Red Dead Redemption (2010), a Western epic that matched its predecessor's ambition with a quieter, more melancholic tone. Its 2018 prequel, Red Dead Redemption 2, remains one of the most detailed and emotionally resonant games ever made, a technical marvel that took eight years and hundreds of millions to build.

Rockstar has also revived cult favorites like Max Payne (co-developed with Remedy), dabbled in brawlers with The Warriors, and even made a table tennis game. But the company's real engine is Grand Theft Auto Online, launched alongside GTA V in 2013. That persistent world has been updated constantly for over a decade, generating billions in revenue and keeping the game among the best-selling titles every year. The next chapter, Grand Theft Auto VI, is set in a fictionalized Miami and is expected in Fall 2025, with the first trailer already breaking YouTube records. Rockstar's studios now span the globe, from Edinburgh to San Diego to Toronto, but the core DNA remains the same: obsessive attention to detail, a darkly satirical view of America, and the belief that games can be art without losing their sense of fun. [edit]