ALL THE LATEST NEWS ABOUT THE BUSINESS OF PC GAMES

News

Ruffian Games is now Rockstar Dundee

Date Type Companies involved Size
October 13th, 2020 acquisition Rockstar Games
Ruffian Games
Not disclosed
Ruffian Games is now Rockstar Dundee

Grand Theft Auto giant Rockstar now appears to own Crackdown 2 maker Ruffian Games.

That's according to The Gamer, which reports that the studio is now Rockstar Dundee.

The Take-Two owned firm snapped up Ruffian as recently as October 1st, according to filings made with Companies House in the UK. Founder and CEO Garry Liddon, as well as creative director William Thomson, have had their appointments as directors terminated and they have ceased to be people with significant control over the studio.

12 months ago, Ruffian said that it was working with Rockstar on an unspecified project, which is likely what lead to this acquisition.

Ruffian was founded back in 2008 and is best known for Crackdown 2 as well as assisting Elbow Rocket with the multiplayer mode for its sequel.

Interestingly, Take-Two hasn't announced the acquisition via its investor relations page as you might expect. Odds are it was waiting until its November 5th Q2 2021 earnings call.

We've reached out to Take-Two for comment.


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.