rockstar-games posts

A dispute over the use of a song featured in Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City has apparently resulted in a court order from Brazil that threatens to pull all copies, both physical and digital, of the recent open world expansion pack. Kotaku reports that one of the songs featured in the game, Conga Kid, is at the center of the issue for the Rockstar Games' title.

According to the report the court ruled that the song used an unauthorized sample from another tune, Bota o Dedinho pro Alto, in The Ballad Of Gay Tony episode of the game. The court reportedly ruled that Rockstar Games must remove all copies from the game worldwide because of this seemingly minor issue and will fine the publisher $3,000 per day until it does as the court orders. When contacted Rockstar Games claims it has yet to receive any official notice from the court on this issue.

Three of the best selling and most influential games of all time will finally be heading to the Mac platform. In a new fan Q&A for Rockstar Games on the publisher's Facebook page, the company revealed that three older games in the Grand Theft Auto open world crime action game series will be coming to Apple's machines.

The games themselves include Grand Theft Auto III (first released for the PS2 way back in 2001) and its two follow-ups Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The Q&A said the games would be released "most likely later this year" with a promise that more info will be revealed later.

[Via Kotaku]

On Thursday, Take Two Interactive made news with a set of financial results that were much higher than expected. Today, investors decided to ride the good news with a much higher stock price. As of this post, Take Two's stock was at $9.80, a rise of over 10 percent compared to Thursday's stock price.

Take Two reported much higher revenues and a net profit when investors had expected a loss. The company announced it was raising its expectations for the rest of its fiscal year which will end on October 31 and says it now expects the company to turn a profit for the entire fiscal year. Upcoming games from Take Two's 2K Games' brand include Civilization V later this month, XCOM and Spec Ops: The Line in 2011 and BioShock Infinite in 2012. And don't forget that 2K Games is about to announce something BIG in about an hour from now.

Publisher Take Two Interactive is always the last of the publicly trade game publishers to reveal its financial results. Today the company revealed that for the quarter that ended on July 31 it generated $354.1 million in revenue, a massive increase compared to the $94.9 million it made for the same period a year ago. Take Two recorded a profit of $12.4 million for the quarter compared to a loss of $58.3 million for the same period a year ago.

Part of the reason for the better numbers were the high sales of the console only game Red Dead Redemption which Take Two said has sold 6.9 million copies since its release last May. The publisher's PC game release schedule includes Civilization V, NBA 2K11 and the next Borderlands DLC release. Oddly, the press release makes no mention of Max Payne 3, the long-in-development action game that's been delayed a number of times.

An alleged internet leak over at the NeoGAF forum has apparently yielded the first real screenshots from Batman: Arkham City, the upcoming sequel to developer Rocksteady's 2009 super hero action game Batman Arkham Asylum. While we have yet to get confirmation from publisher Warner Bros. Interactive that these are the real deal, we feel confident enough that these are legit to go ahead and post them.

Besides the visuals here are just simply too cool looking not to post about. Batman looks cool as always but take a look at Two-Face. That has to be the best representation of Harvey Dent we have ever seen, and yes we include The Dark Knight movie in that comparison. It's going to be a long wait until Batman Arkham City's fall 2011 release.

[Via Joystiq]

Rockstar Games surprised a lot of people, including financial analysts, with the sales success of Red Dead Redemption. The Wild West open world action game from Rockstar's San Diego dev team not only got great reviews but Rockstar's parent company Take Two Interactive said the game sold over 5 million copies since its release in May.

Red Dead Redemption is also a console exclusive release. Naturally some folks would like to see the game on the PC. Rockstar's official web site answers a fan's question about such a PC port by saying there are no "current" plans to offer the game on our platform. That doesn't mean we won't see a PC port at some point as Rockstar is notorious for releasing PC versions of their console games months and sometimes years after the games first come out on consoles.

It looks like Take Two Interactive's Rockstar Games brand won't be present at E3 2010 later this month. Computer and Video Games is reporting that a Rockstar rep has told them, " ,,, we simply don't have enough time to show as much as we would like in the time available."

Rockstar was supposed to show at least two games at the show, including the long-in-development action game sequel Max Payne 3. If you believe the internet rumors Rockstar was also supposed to announce a new game in the Grand Theft Auto series at E3 as well. Rockstar says now they plan to hold more traditional press events at its headquarters "in the coming weeks."

Gallery: Max Payne 3

On Wednesday, rumors hit the internet that a pirated copy of Remedy's action game Max Payne 2 was the version that was being sold by Rockstar Games on the Steam service. While Rockstar did not respond to emai inquires about this issue it appears that the publisher has taken care of the issue.

According to Steam message board posts, the suspected pirated version has been replaced with one that seems to be truly legit. The only problem; that version is one that is slightly older than the pirated version. It still shouldn't be an issue for most people who want to download and play the game.

[Via Blue's News]

Last week Steam had a big week long sale of Rockstar Games' titles. That included Max Payne 2, the second game in the third person action game series from developer Remedy. However there is evidence that the version of Max Payne 2 on Steam may have come from a PC game pirate group rather than directly from Rockstar.

A post on Steam's message board forums shows what the poster claims is a screenshot of Max Payne 2 under a decompiler. It shows a "Myth" logo in ASCII which is a signature from a PC game pirate group. While it's possible that the original 2002 game had this symbol put into the code its perhaps more likely that Rockstar, in providing the game for Steam users, simply decided to find a pirate version of the title. We have emailed Rockstar to see if they have any comment on this issue.

[Via Blue's News]

A huge sale of all of Rockstar Games via Steam last week managed to get the bundle on top of the best seller list (according to revenue) for the PC game download service. A second bundle for Codemasters' driving games was second on the list. In fact it was so popular that Steam ran out of game codes for one of the bundle's titles Fuel. More keys are on the way, however and people who bought the bundle will get the game downloaded when they are available.

The full list is below:

1. Rockstar Collection - Rockstar Games
2. Codemasters Racing Pack - Codemasters
3. Left 4 Dead 2 - Valve
4. Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Package - Infinity Ward/Activision
5. Battlefield Bad Company 2 - Digital Illusions/EA
6. Splinter Cell Conviction Deluxe Edition - Ubisoft
7. Splinter Cell Conviction - Ubisoft
8. Guild Wars Trilogy - ArenaNet/NCsoft
9. Grand Theft Auto IV - Rockstar Games
10. Modern Warfare 2 - Infinity Ward/Activision