Rockstar Games was founded in 1998 and is known for publishing major open world franchises like Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead, and Max Payne. They own development studios around the world through acquisitions. Red Dead Redemption was published by Rockstar Games, developed by Rockstar San Diego, and distributed by Ditan Distributions. It was released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles and utilized technologies like downloadable content to enhance the gameplay experience. The game draws from the Western film genre in its storyline, characters, and environments to create familiarity for players.

1. PRODUCTION

2. Media Ownership
• Who is Rockstar?
Rockstar Games was founded in 1998 in New York City
by the British producers Sam Houser (President), Dan
Houser, Terry Donovan, Jamie King and Gary Foreman.
Today the company is the subsiduary of Take-Two
Interactive and is well established as a video game
developer and a publisher. The brand is most known
for being the publishers behind Grand Theft Auto, Max
Payne, Midnight Club and the Red Dead series – all of
which are open world games.

3. • What do they own?
The label has studios established all over the world – New
York, Los Angeles, Vienna, Leeds, Toronto, just to mention a
few. Most of these began their buisness life as independent
companies, but were later acquired by Take-Two, renamed
and ‘converted’ into a subsidiary of the Rockstar group. One
example is ‘Barking Dog Studios’ which was converted into
‘Rockstar Vancouver ‘. The reasons why Take-Two chose to
take over already established offices, instead of setting them
up from scratch, are:
1. They get a team of employees who are used to working
together
2. They get the building
3. They get the studio’s contacts
4. They get all the hardware
5. They get related to all kudos given to the studio before it
was coverted.

4. • Who in all this is the Publisher, the Developer and the
Distributor?
Publisher: Rockstar Games Inc.
Game developer: Rockstar San Diego
Distributor: Ditan Distributions
This is a clear example of vertical integration as Take-Two
owns and controls all these companies.
An example of horizontal integration is the fact that the
Software developer is ‘Natural Motion’, a company not
owned or controlled by Take-Two. Rockstar San Diego had
developed the RAGE engine for the game, but needed the
engines Euphoria (developed by Natural Motion, proprietary
software) and Bullet (open source) for the character
animation and the physics of the game. This cross-media
convergence is important as the companies benefit from
eachother.

5. Making the game
Making a game is a long and complex process.
1. Preproduction: Deciding on the storyline, often ideas come from
gamedesigners, pitched from outsiders, based on movies, or. spin-offs from
other games. When the storyline is set, writers, designers and artists make a
storyboard, just like in films, only with a game every ‘new world’ and level
needs to be sketched out.
2. Creating the Characters: Firstly, they are sketched by hand, then made into 3D
characters.
3. Putting it all in motion: The game programmers bring the characters to life, by
using techniques depending on the type of game and motion desired.
4. Creating the game world: Game programmers create the environment down to
every detail.
5. Making the code: The computer language instructions that control every aspect
of the game, making it all work together.
6. Postproduction: This phase includes extensive testing, review, marketing and
finally, distribution. Usually during this testing phase, a copy of the game is sent
to the Entertainment Software Rating Board to be given a rating. These ratings
are intended to give consumers an idea of the content of the game and its
appropriateness for different age groups.
7. Marketing: Demos and trailers are released to hype the attention around the
game.

6. Gaming Platforms
•What gaming platform is the game avaliable on?
Ps3 (Sony) and Xbox360 (Microsoft)
These consoles are targeted at adult, hardcore
gamers, and most games certificated at 18+ (nudity,
violence and strong language in games) are
avaliable on these platforms.
The other gaming platforms on the market at the
moment, are Wii and Nintendo 3DS – both of which
are targeted a family, younger audience. Games on
these consoles are mostly casual games, and the
owners of these consoles are unlikely to go out and
buy RDR. Therefor RDR will make more money on
being avaliable on Ps3 and Xbox360.

7. Technical Convergence
•Which technologies?
Internet, optical reader, music library, image display, online store, download
content.
•How does this impact players?
The players can download ‘Download Content’ as it becomes avaliable on the
online market. Currently there are four Red Dead DLC’s:
 Undead Nightmare
 Liars and Cheats
 Legends and Killers
 Outlaws to the End (co-op mission pack)
These packs mean that the players get more revenue, more characters, new
maps, achievements and trophies. This gives the game greater depth, creates
more competition and encourages winning.
This gives the game a lot of interesting features, and more people want to buy it
– more money to the producers!

8. Intertextuality
•Is there any intertextuality in RDR?
Red Dead Redemption is of the same genre as western films, and builds on
the same stories. Many images from the game, for example the front cover,
are very similar to famous stills from older western movies. Also the
characters look similar to the actors in these movies, for example Clint
Eastwood known from many western films.
Since the storylines within the game is similar to the storylines of western
movies, the task within the game is already know to the player because of
the movies. This could be task such as taming horses, ambushes, stranger
encounters and animal attacks, just to mention a few.
The game also offers you to decide whether to be the villain or the bad guy –
which is always central in the western movies.
•Why have they used intertextuality?
1. There were already two western genre games on the market before
RDR – Gun and Red Dead Revolver. These games had done well, and the
producers therefore new they would profit from making a game in this
genre.
2. The producers know that the audience will recognize the environment,
the characters, the tasks and the music, which is an appeal.