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The company Rockstar was first set up in 1993 when a rock music company in London called BMG Interactive decided that they didn’t want to only run a music company but something of a much older audience which is the world of gaming. Two brothers Sam and Dan Howser decided that they would be perfect to run the company as they started to believe that their dreams of being musicians started to fade away from them, but there was a catch they had little knowledge of the gaming industry. The first controversial game in which they had decided to make was a game called ‘Race and Chase’ the reason this game was so controversial was you could just drive around and kill pedestrians this was seen to extremely different to any other game that was released before this as they were mainly aimed at children, and not young adults or over 18’s, because this game had so much to offer it took them a staggering 30 months to make. Eventually when 1997 came along they were ready to release the game under a new name which is now a hit title ‘Grand Theft Auto’. Even though the game was a hit BMG was coming under a mass amount of pressure from corporate the two producers of the game Sam and Dan were more than likely about to be made redundant, a company who are based within the centre of New York decided that they would buy the company that company being Take Two Interactive.

Take Two Interactive decided that they were going to buy BMG due to the fact they would like to make games which are completely different to other games that were out at the time such as games which had a bigger meaning to them rather than just running up and down on different platforms. Because Take Two Interactive bought BMG the jobs of Sam and Dan where hanging in the balance for them but they were given the chance to be the head of the department once more and so Rockstar was born. As they were taken on by such a big company they were given the freedom to create whatever they wanted and a much bigger budget than what they had at BMG Interactive. Because they were given more freedom and money by Take Two they decided that they would create the sequel to Grand Theft Auto and release Grand Theft Auto 2 in 1999 which was the first game in which Take Two and Rockstar had released together, this game was so massive it in fact sold two million different copies of them. Later on down the line and they had released a couple of other games and now in 2001 the return of the Grand Theft Auto series was back with Grand Theft Auto 3. This game was such a success as it was one of the first 3 dimensional games to be released unlike the other two which were 2 dimensional. This was seen as the game in which people stopped believing that playing video games were just for nerds as it involved its dark story to it as well as drugs, prostitution and organised crime. As well as a heavy soundtrack to it. The game was so much of a success that it in fact won game of the year and also allowed the PlayStation 2 to sell better as everybody wanted to buy this game. As the game was so loud and in your face with crime it brought in a lot of criticism to the point in Australia it was banned. This didn’t stop the company from releasing more great hits later on within the same year the start of another hit series started Max Payne.

In 2002 Rockstar believed it was a good idea to buy DMA and rename it Rockstar North this now started the birth of another Grand Theft Auto game this time a sort of spin off GTA Vice City which is a replica to Miami. This started the advertisement of games with them deciding that they would advertise games with posters this also a big success. 2003 came along and Manhunt was released probably one of the most bloodiest and best graphics game to be released and was in fact blamed for the murder of a teenager within the UK, as well as it be seen to get banned within New Zealand and Australia. A year later they released a film called football factory about football hooliganism but that didn’t have a big success. They decided the film industry wasn’t for them and went back to games again releasing another Grand Theft Auto game that being GTA San Andreas based around California and Nevada this showing that the game is continuing to expand shows it to have more guns and more cars than they ever did before as well as it being based on a whole state not just a single city. The game was a huge success making it one of the highest selling games within the US and EU, but due to the fact that players found out they could have sex with the characters it changed from a moderate rating to and adult only game this had seen them having to recall the game this had cost the up towards £25 million.

Then in 2008 another Grand Theft Auto game in the series is to be released which would be Grand Theft Auto 4 this was available in HD making it one of the most detailed games about on the market. This was based in New York but in the game known as Liberty City this game would now be available on the same day for XBOX and PlayStation for the first time. Instead of being available for PlayStation users first, as well as it also being available for people to play online with each other it means it was the most expensive game at the time at a total of $100 million in total to make it. The day of release came and it sold a massive total of 3.6 copies then a week on the total copies of sales were put up to $500 million in 7 days. This being the fastest ever selling entertainment release in history which made the cost of the game not being a problem for the company.

Finally after rumours for many years the latest instalment in the series GTA V was released on PS3, and XBOX 360 in 2013, then 24 hours later made a total of $800 million in revenue then in 2014 was re-released on to ‘Next Gen’ consoles them being the Xbox One and PS4. Then a year later on PC. This is showing the history of the last 20 years of Rockstar.