Rockstar Toronto

Rockstar Toronto (formerly Rockstar Canada) is an in-house game development team for Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive, located in Oakville, Ontario, Canada, a town located approximately twenty minutes west of Toronto. The company was renamed Rockstar Toronto in 2002 after Rockstar Games bought Vancouver-based Barking Dog Studios and re-named it Rockstar Vancouver.

In recent years, Rockstar Toronto has taken the responsibility of porting titles to the Wii console and PC with varying degrees of success. Rockstar Toronto’s PC port of Grand Theft Auto IV received scathing reviews due to multiple bugs and glitches. Bit-tech went as far as to name the PC port the fourth “most disappointing game” of 2008.

Their most recent project was co-developing a PC version of Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City with Rockstar North, which was released on April 13, 2010.

Rockstar Toronto in the Media

Rockstar Games has appeared numerous times in the media ranging from gaming magazines, websites, and television shows. Rockstar Toronto has gained the most media coverage for its development of the game The Warriors, based on the American cult classic 1970s movie of the same name. The Warriors game overall received positive reviews and made about $37 million worldwide. A lawsuit was filed by Roger Hill (who played Cyrus in The Warriors movie) against the company for depicting him in the game without his permission. The claims were groundless and the company did indeed have rights to use Hill’s likeness in the game.

Collaborations

Rockstar Toronto has collaborated with many of its fellow studios around the world. Rockstar Toronto has developed games for every major gaming console and has worked with popular companies, such as Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. Rockstar Toronto has collaborated with Bungie (game developer famous for its Halo title) on the game Oni, which was released for the PlayStation 2 in 2001. They have also worked with Digital Eclipse Software on Grand Theft Auto Advance released in 2004 for the Game Boy Advance. One of Rockstar Toronto’s most successful collaborations was with Remedy Entertainment on the game Max Payne, which was released in 2002 for the PlayStation 2.

Information about Rockstar Toronto is provided by Wikipedia