Rockstar's Road To Ruin

Via GamePolitics, an exerpt from an upcoming Wired print magazine article on Rockstar's slide from grace. The article outlines a number of the problems we've discussed here on the site, such as their numerous lawsuits, the 'Hot Coffee' scandal, and stock-option problems. At four pages it's only a teaser for the longer article in the magazine, but it's still very much worth taking a look. "The irony is thick: The company that defined virtual criminality is now associated with the real thing. Rockstar and Take-Two executives declined to answer questions for this article, but their rich and troubled story is revealed by official documents and former employees. It seems the blokes forgot that in life, as in Grand Theft Auto, there are repercussions for the choices you make."

Comments

They deserve props, no matter what

[dave562]

I still remember playing the first GTA, initially in standard VGA and then with the mystical "new" 3dfx card. It was by far one of the most entertaining games out at the time. I completely hated GTA2, but everything from GTA3 onward just got better and better. The guys at Rockstar created something that gamers have wanted forever... a huge world that you can run around and do pretty much anything in. I'm still convinced that if anyone came out with an MMO like GTA where you could progress to the point of being a crime boss and running portions of the city, they'd have a huge hit on their hands.

Re:They deserve props, no matter what

[zrobotics]

Personally, I think something like this would be fairly easy to do. The average pedestrian NPC's in GTA react to shootings in a perfectly sane manner-they scream and run away. Yes, it would involve a lot of pvp warfare, but that's the whole point of such a game. If there were different character classes-I.E. bodyguards, crooked cops, hitmen, etc., it would keep things fairly well balanced. If there were multiple 'gangs' in a city, the territory each gang controlled could be controlled by how much money they made from whatever illegal enterprises they controlled and how well they did in PvP warfare. Also, the quest system would be as viable as any other MMO. For instance, how many people are upset that when they are questing in, say, wow, everybody seems to be doing the same thing. In quests that involve helping some prisoner escape, or collecting a certain number of items for a NPC, it doesn't make any logical sense that the NPC would want to escape multiple times, or would need millions of a certain item, but it happens anyway. I have been waiting quite a while for a full-fledged MMO GTA, and I don't see any serious problems hindering the development of such a game.

Re:They deserve props, no matter what

[dave562]

What I would really like to see is a system setup where players are allowed to establish groups, buy property and then generate money from that property. The money generation should be tied to NPCs. Some NPCs could work at the property itself, where as others could be sent out on pre-scripted missions. The NPCs who generate money inside the facility should do so at a much slower rate than those who venture outside of the relative safety of the facility. For example, a property might come with a courier. The courier could be dispatched to various locations around the game world and the reward for a successful courier run could be dependent on how far the courier actually went. Other players could be assigned the task of keeping the courier alive. Rival organizations could earn money by intercepting the courier. If the courier died, there should be a lengthy respawn time... perhaps as long as thirty minutes. To add another level of complexity, organizations might be able to kidnap each others NPCs and then use them (after the appropriate period of indoctrination by a player with the required skills/abilities to do so).

By including bodyguard like AI, other NPCs could be assigned to the primary NPC. Depending on the dynamics of the world, giving the courier bodyguards might not be the best thing to do because it would make the courier a more visible target. I've been mainly thinking about these types of AI in a Shadowrun-esque MMO. In such a setting, rival organizations might have to hack into each others networks in order to obtain intel on the couriers... without the intel, the courier would just appear as a standard NPC.

Re:Ruin, eh?

[badasscat]

Take Two's management woes are not automatically Rockstar's problem. They're a subsidiary, not a department.

It's the same company. Read the article. Rockstar is not just a subsidiary, and the problems are not only Take 2's.

I used to work there, so I'm saying this from first-hand experience as well. The article is pretty much dead-on, and while a lot of the "former employees" are not named, their quotes sound 100% believable to me (and I have my suspicions who they are).

Implicit in the article but not fully explored is the fact that nearly 100% of the company has turned over in the past 4 years (including myself). Some of us left because we saw the writing on the wall, others for personal reasons. But almost all of the people that made that company what it originally was are now gone.

Let's check the mainstream media

[sesshomaru]

Ah, for an unbiased view (I kid, of course), let's check the mainstream media:

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A feisty shareholder revolt at Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. this week offed nearly as many executives as virtual characters in the video game company's violent titles.

Financial analysts and child advocates said only a thorough purging at the top would reverse the accounting and ethical lapses at the publisher of the popular, murder-your-way-to-victory video game "Grand Theft Auto." With a new CEO and several new board members now leading the company, that's what they got.

"If you look at the content of what these guys have distributed, it's so offensive and inappropriate. It's not surprising to learn they had committed massive acts of fraud at the board and CEO level," said James Steyer, CEO and founder of San Francisco-based multimedia ratings group Common Sense Media Inc., a nonprofit that rates video games and other content for violence and other factors. "The chickens have come home to roost for this company _ and I say good riddance to these guys."

...snip...

Financial analysts have criticized Take-Two for relying too heavily on relatively uncreative sequels, sports games and bloodthirsty "first-person shooters." While so-called hardcore games remain popular with teens and young men, new online genres _ trivia quizzes, word games and multiplayer role-playing games _ are catching on with women, older players and millions of mobile phone users.

Child advocacy groups and legislators are Take-Two's biggest foes, complaining that the company produces the industry's most violent, mean-spirited games.

In "Grand Theft Auto," players shoot pedestrians and police with reckless abandon. Another hit is "Bully," about a slingshot-wielding 15-year-old at Bullworth Academy boarding school, whose motto is "Canis Canem Edit," Latin for "dog eat dog."

Take-Two is best known for a version of "Grand Theft Auto" that included a hidden, lewd scene that sparked a 2005 congressional uproar. -- Investors Laud Video Game Co.'s Upheaval

Let's see, this AP article could have been written by Jack Thompson. It is extremely poor journalism. Has Rockstar ever even published an FPS? These are the people (AP) who many people rely on for information on world affairs, and in helping to determine who to elect into office, and their "facts" resemble the ones that used to be put forth by Cotton Mather at the average Salem witch-trial.

Prediction, when Grand Theft Auto 4 comes out, expect these same "child advocacy" censorship groups to be saying, "Looks like Take Two didn't learn their lesson."

I forget, what video games did Enron make?