Rockstar buys Mad Doc Software

By Robert Purchese Published 7 April, 2008

Empire Earth dev becomes family.

Rockstar Games has acquired Empire Earth developer Mad Doc Software.

The two worked closely together on the Xbox 360 version of Bully: Scholarship Edition, and will continue to build on their relationship as the studio becomes Rockstar New England.

"The team at Mad Doc Software is extremely talented," said Sam Houser, kingpin at Rockstar Games.

"Bringing them within the Rockstar Games family will enhance our core technology and further support our commitment to creating progressive and innovative gaming experiences."

There is no word on exactly how much the Grand Theft Auto creator paid, nor what Rockstar New England will be working on next.

Rockstar now runs a total of nine studios around the world.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (12) Latest comment 4 years ago

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  • urban #1 4 years ago

    emboldens what i've always suspected from rockstar wanting to become a publisher

  • Darren #2 4 years ago

    "The team at Mad Doc Software is extremely talented," said Sam Houser, kingpin at Rockstar Games.

    Ah so that'll be why the Xbox 360 version of Bully required an emergency patch to fix the freezing issues and why this game has audio glitches, pop up and framerate issues, things that you really wouldn't expect in a game that has been ported from a last gen system? ;)

    Sure, Bully is awesome fun to play, which is the point, but it could and should have been so much better technically given the Xbox 360's superiority over the ancient PS2.

  • Gurrah #3 4 years ago

    ...creating progressive and innovative gaming experiences.

    GTA4 - sooooo innovative. Wasn't the last Empire Earth shite? Why would you buy such a company?

  • orakio #4 4 years ago

    .. to become bigger and wealthier?

    I get the feeling it's becoming "eat or get eaten" in the modern industry.

  • Olemak #5 4 years ago

    Rockstar is a wholly owned subsidiary of Take 2, and it seems very unlikely that they'll be able to set up as a publisher competing with its own owner. Even if Take 2 sold off Rockstar to EA to save it's own skin (which would be a bad move in my opinion, but might be unavoidable when EA cranks up the hostile takeover pressure - it's basically GTA they're after anyway), then this scenario is even less likely.

    Most likely (in my opinion), this is just a way to beef up Take 2 in general and Rockstar in particular, anticipating another bid from EA.

  • Slamhound #6 4 years ago

    This kinda reminds me of that diagram with the progressively-larger fish eating each other.

  • Buztafen #7 4 years ago

    "This kinda reminds me of that diagram with the progressively-larger fish eating each other."

    ...except the biggest fish is actually a giant turd called EA... :(

  • lambtron #8 4 years ago

    EA have put out some alright stuff recently. SKATE was awesome in just about every way and FIFA is by all accounts, better than PES these days. They've also put out some absolute garbage too but then can you point me to another major publisher who hasn't? Even Ninty is responsible for some crimes against humanity with some of its recent games.

  • bad #9 4 years ago

    Empire Earth somehow conspired to be spectacularly dull. Less of this sort of thing please.

  • zoidberg #10 4 years ago

    9 studios around the world? NINE? that's pretty big... and they can't get games out the door?

  • Royal Fool #11 4 years ago

    I bet Rockstar got them for cheap. That's the only sane reason.

  • Davemanz #12 4 years ago

    I think you're right Royal Fool. The last Empire Earth was horrendously received and from what I understand the 360 Bully port was awful as well. R* has had dealings with this dev in the past so they just gobbled them up when their worth fell through the floor this past year.