Rockstar Vancouver

Infobox_Company
company_
company_name = Rockstar Vancouver
company_type = subsidiary
parent = Rockstar Games
foundation = August 2002
location = Vancouver, British Columbia
industry = Game development
products = "Bully"

Rockstar Vancouver is a video game studio located in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia. Rockstar Vancouver released "Bully", a controversial title exclusively for the PlayStation 2 on October 17, 2006. [cite web|url=http://www.rockstargames.com/bully/|title=Rockstar Games: Bully In Stores Now|author=Rockstar Games|publisher=Rockstar Games|date=2006-10-17|accessdate=2007-09-09] Rockstar Vancouver employs 75 people and develops action titles exclusively for Rockstar Games.

History

Rockstar Vancouver started as Barking Dog Studios, and was founded in May 1998 by several former employees of Radical Entertainment. Barking Dog, with publishing assistance by Sierra Studios, moved on to produce a sequel to the 1999 "PC Magazine" Game of the Year "Homeworld" entitled "". "Homeworld" had been developed by Relic Entertainment but Sierra chose instead to use Barking Dog to develop the game.

Barking Dog was also retained by Valve Software for minor finishing touches on an early beta version of the popular first-person shooter Counter-Strike. Their legacy can be seen on the "Counter-Strike" map "de_train" where their cartoon dog logo can be seen on the side of a railcar.

Barking Dog also produced other games such as Global Operations, Transworld Skateboarding and Treasure Planet. They were acquired by Rockstar Games in August 2002, and became known as Rockstar Vancouver. The name Barking Dog Studios was then sold to a web site/application development company.

Many Barking Dog employees later split off to form their own companies, such as Kerberos Productions and Ironclad Games.

References

External links

* [http://rockstarvancouver.com/ Official Rockstar Vancouver Site]
* [http://www.rockstargames.com Official Rockstar Games Site]
* [http://www.take2games.com Official Take-Two Interactive Site]
* [http://www.mobygames.com/company/rockstar-vancouver Rockstar Vancouver] entry at MobyGames
* [http://www.candevs.ca/ CanDevs - Canadian Video Game Companies]