Employee Exodus at Rockstar Games?

hammersuit writes "GameDaily Biz is reporting on recent troubles at Rockstar Games. 'A difficult console transition, FTC investigation, re-rating of GTA: San Andreas and more have put Rockstar and Take-Two in an unenviable position. We've received word that in addition to people who left because of studio closures, even more either fled or quit. Are Rockstar employees jumping ship or is this just a result of cost-cutting at Take-Two?'"

Comments

Re:Take a look at the list of people

[badasscat]

Is it just me or doesn't there seem to be a single coder or designer there? Nobody who actually makes these games?

Rockstar Games is a publisher, not a developer.

That said, they own outright all of the games they have gotten in trouble over, and the creative ideas and planning is all handled by them. So they can't turn around over Hot Coffee and say "it's Rockstar North's fault - they were the ones who developed the game." No. Rockstar Games is either directly or indirectly responsible for all of their own problems. But they don't employ a single coder - though parent company Take 2 does (as owners of Rockstar North and other developers).

Bully- where you FIGHT bullies

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, please don't base your whole post off of your assumptions and 3 screenshots on their site.

E3 preview of bully
http://ps2.ign.com/articles/611/611166p1.html

excerpt:
"It follows the story of a troublesome schoolboy in reform school as he tries to _stand up to bullies_, gets picked on by teachers, plays pranks, and even tries to get the girl. All of this takes place in the fictional Bullworth Academy."

Emphasis mine.

Don't listen to Jack Thompson, k? He has no clue what he's talking about.

Re:Over GTA? No way

[panic911]

You are correct. It is dubbed RAGE (Rockstar Advanced Game Engine)

More Info @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAGE_(Game_Engine)

Oh and table tennis is FUN! Great graphics too =)

Re:All useless in the context of game development

[cmonkey_1973]

Where do you think all the artwork for Rockstar's games come from?

The artists in the development team.

the music in the games; the soundtracks for all the GTA games

Usually outsourced to a third party sound engineer, though some teams do have their own full-time sound guy.

Who do you think makes sure the games hit their milestones?

The internal producer.

Who do you think project manages, produces

The internal producer.

writes the scripts

The designer - though which designer depends on the complexity of the scripting (oh, actually I'm assuming you mean voice scripting, but if you mean level scripting it'll be a coder, usually a junior one).

hires the voice talent

Chooses or pays? Lead Designer and comes out of production budget usually (handled by the internal producer again) respectively.

does the recording

Sound guy again usually overseen by the external producer (closest you've got yet!) or the lead designer.

does the game testing

The test team, this is usually funded by the (external) production budget overseen by the external producer and can be either using their own full-time testing team or an external agency.

Whoever modded that Insightful embarrassed the both of you...