THE VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY The video game industry (often referred to as interactive entertainment) is the economic sector involved with the development, marketing and sales of video games. It encompasses dozens of job disciplines and employs thousands of people worldwide. Game industry value chain The game industry value chain is made up of six connected and distinctive layers: 1. Capital and publishing layer: involved in paying for development of new titles and seeking returns through licensing of the titles. 2. Product and talent layer: includes developers, designers and artists, who may be working under individual contracts or as part of in-house development teams. 3. Production and tools layer: generates content production tools, game development middleware, customizable game engines, and production management tools. 4. Distribution layer: or the "publishing" industry, involved in generating and marketing catalogs of games for retail and online distribution. 5. Hardware (or Virtual Machine or Software Platform) layer: or the providers of the underlying platform, which may be console-based, accessed through online media, or accessed through mobile devices such as the iPhone. This layer now includes non-hardware platforms such as virtual machines (e.g. Java or Flash), or software platforms such as browsers or even further Facebook, etc. 6. End-users layer: or the users/players of the games.[2] [edit]Disciplines Latest trends in the game industry A fairly recent practice, since the mid-1990s, of the video game industry is the rise of game players as developers of game content. The rise of video game players as fourth-party developers of game content allows for more open source models of game design, development and engineering. Game players create user modifications (mods), which in some cases become just as popular, maybe even more popular, as the original game created. An example of this is the game Counter-strike, which began as a mod of the video game Half-Life and eventually became a published game in its own right that was very successful. While this "community of modifiers" may only add up to approximately 1% of a particular game's user base, the number of those involved will grow as more games offer modifying opportunities (such as, by releasing source code) and as the international community of gamers rise. According to Ben Sawyer, as many as 600,000 established online game community developers will exist by 2012. This will effectively add a new component to the game industry value chain and if it continues to mature it will integrate itself into the overall industry. <="" aRockstar Rockstar Games From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Rockstar Games, Inc. Type Subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive Industry Computer and video games Interactive entertainment Founded 1998[1] Headquart New York City, United ers States Key Sam Houser (president) people Dan Houser (vice president) Products Grand Theft Auto Midnight Club Manhunt Red Dead Max Payne Bully L.A. Noire The Warriors Owner(s) Take-Two Interactive Parent Take-Two Interactive Website www.rockstargames.co m Rockstar Games is a major video game developer and publisher based in New York City, owned by Take-Two Interactive following its purchase of UK video game publisher BMG Interactive.[2] The brand is mostly known for Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne, L.A. Noire, The Warriors, Bully, Manhunt, Midnight Club,State of Emergency (video game), and Red Dead series and the use of open world, free roaming settings in their games. It comprises studios that have been acquired and renamed as well as others that have been created internally. While many of the studios Take-Two Interactive has acquired have been merged into the Rockstar brand, several other recent ones have retained their previous identities and have become part of the company's 2K Gamesdivision. The Rockstar Games label was founded in New York City in 1998[1] by the English video game producers Sam Houser, Dan Houser, Terry Donovan, Jamie King and Gary Foreman.[3] The headquarters of Rockstar Games (commonly referred to as Rockstar NYC) is located on Broadway in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City, part of the Take-Two Interactive offices. It is home to the marketing, public relations and product development departments. Company goal In October 2011, Rockstar creative vice president Dan Houser told Famitsu that Rockstar is intentionally avoiding developing in the first- person shooter genre. "We're deliberately avoiding that right now", he said, according to a 1UP.com translation. "It's in our DNA to avoid doing what other companies are doing. I suppose you could say that Max Payne 3 is something close to an FPS, but there are really unique aspects to the setting and gameplay there, too, not just in the story. You have to have originality in your games; you have to have some kind of interesting message. You could say that the goalpoint of Rockstar is to have the players really feel what we're trying to do". Houser went on to say that Rockstar has "made new genres by ourselves with games like the GTA series. We didn't rely on testimonials in a business textbook to do what we've done. I think we succeeded precisely because we didn't concentrate on profit... If we make the sort of games we want to play, then we believe people are going to buy them."[ Technology [edit]RAGE Main article: Rockstar Advanced Game Engine Rockstar Games have developed their own game engine called the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE) to facilitate game development on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows, Mac and Wiisystems. [edit]Social Club Main article: Rockstar Games Social Club The Rockstar Games Social Club is a community website created by Rockstar for use with their games. Notable game series Grand Theft Auto series (1997–present) Midnight Club series (2000–present) Max Payne series (2001–present) Manhunt series (2003–2007) Red Dead series (2004–present Grand Theft Auto series Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is a fictional chronology 2002 action-adventure open world video game developed by games GTA era developer Rockstar North (formerly DMA 1961 – London, 1961 Design) and published by Rockstar Games . 1969 – London, 1969 It is the second 3D game in the Grand Theft Auto video game franchise and sixth original 1997 – Grand Theft Auto title overall. It debuted in North America on October 1, 2002 for the PlayStation 2 and GTA 2 era was later ported to the Xbox, and Microsoft Windows in 2003. It was made available 1999 – Grand Theft Auto 2 onSteam on January 4, 2008, and on the Mac App Store on August 25, 2011. [2] Vice City was preceded by Grand Theft GTA III era Auto III and followed by Grand Theft Auto: 1984 – Vice City Stories San Andreas. 1986 – Vice City Vice City draws much of its inspiration from 1992 – San Andreas 1980s American culture. Set in 1986 in Vice 1998 – Liberty City Stories City, a fictional city modeled after Miami, the 2000 – Advance story revolves around a 2001 – Grand Theft Auto III psychotic Mafia hitman Tommy Vercetti , who was recently released from prison. After being involved in a drug deal gone GTA IV era wrong, Tommy seeks out those responsible while building a criminal empire and seizing 2008 – Grand Theft Auto IV power from other criminal organizations in The Lost and the city. The game uses a tweaked version Damned of the game engine used in Grand Theft Auto III and similarly presents a huge The Ballad of Gay cityscape, fully populated with buildings, Tony vehicles, and people. Like other games in the series, Vice City has elements 2009 – Chinatown Wars from driving games and third-person shooters, and features "open-world" GTA V era gameplay that gives the player more control over their playing experience. 2012 - Grand Theft Auto V Upon its release, Vice City became the best-selling video game of 2002. In July 2006, Vice City was the best- selling PlayStation 2 game of all time.Vice City also appeared on Japanese magazine Famitsu's readers' list of the favorite 100 videogames of 2006, the only fully Western title on the list.[3]Following this success, Vice City saw releases in Europe, Australia and Japan, as well as a release for the PC. Rockstar Vienna also packaged the game with its predecessor, Grand Theft Auto III, and sold it as Grand Theft Auto: Double Pack for the Xbox. Vice City's setting is also revisited in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, which serves as a prequel to events in Vice City. The player takes on the role of Tommy Vercetti , a member of the Liberty City mafia released from prison in 1986 after serving only 15 years for killing eleven men.[4] Tommy's old boss, Sonny Forelli , fears that Tommy's presence in Liberty City will heighten tensions and bring unwanted attention to his organization's criminal activities.[5] To prevent this, Sonny ostensibly promotes Tommy and sends him to Vice City under the guardianship of Mafia lawyer Ken Rosenberg to act as their buyer for a series of cocaine deals.[6] During Tommy's first deal, an ambush by an unknown party results in the death of Tommy's bodyguards and the cocaine dealer, Vic Vance (the main character of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories). Tommy narrowly escapes with his life and loses both Forelli's money and the cocaine.[7] When Tommy informs Sonny of the ambush Sonny loses his temper and threatens Tommy with the consequences of attempting to cheat the Mafia. Tommy promises to retrieve the money and the cocaine and kill whoever was responsible for the ambush.[8] Towards this end, Tommy meets up again with Ken Rosenberg, who leads Tommy to mid-level drug dealer Juan Garcia Cortez.