Rockstar Games has today confirmed the appointment of Gary Dale as Chief Operating Officer. Dale had previously been European Managing Director for Capcom since 2003.
The move is something of a homecoming for the new appointee - between 1994 and 1998, Dale had been President of the Interactive Software and Video Division of BMG Entertainment, coincidentally overseeing the launch of DMA Design's Grand Theft Auto before Take-Two bought BMG - and DMA Design became Rockstar North.
As of right now, there are no monopolies in the games industry, and for the sake of the medium as a whole, they never should either.
And yet the biggest tech companies in America are essentially that. They buy up all the small comps only to kill them off and steal what they have, and if they can't buy em they bleed them to death.
They buy IPs not talent. That's why these buyouts never work and the IPs die. Right now it's too expensive to develop games - but I expect that to shift maybe as AI tools can make it easier. The best games have been indie games for awhile as big developers fuck their ips to death with "games as a service" -
INDIE Live Expo, Japan’s premiere online digital showcase series , will debut never-before-seen games & content updates across more than 100 titles on May 25th.
"The best games of the year and the creative teams behind them were in the spotlight at the grand award ceremony of the German Computer Game Award 2024." - German Computer Game Awards.
...leaving the comfy confines of Capcom, for the turbulent seas of Rockstar. Brave....or stupid. :o
Hope he likes press conferences.
And hates Jack Thompson.
...hate Jack Thompson? ;)