Rockstar acquires Mad Doc

By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpotPosted Apr 4, 2008 2:33 pm PT

Grand Theft Auto studio cements ties to Massachusetts-based developer of Bully: Scholarship Edition, Empire Earth II.

Despite a rash of show-stopping crash bugs in the Xbox 360 edition of Bully, Rockstar Games was apparently pleased with the port job performed by Mad Doc Software. The Grand Theft Auto developer today announced that it has acquired the studio and renamed it Rockstar New England. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Before handling the Xbox 360 port of Bully, Mad Doc developed Star Trek: Legacy for the PC and Xbox 360, as well as PC games like the real-time strategy game Empire Earth II, and the Dungeon Siege expansion Legends of Aranna. The studio has also created its own game engine and AI middleware solutions.

Rockstar did not announce what its new branch's first project would be, but Mad Doc founder and Rockstar New England studio head Dr. Ian Lane Davis said in a statement that the team is "eager to bring our expertise to bear in the character-driven, open-world stories that make Rockstar Games titles so uniquely compelling."

57 Comments

  • suds100

    Posted Apr 8, 2008 3:14 am PT

    Rockstar is riding on more faith than they have.

  • cooldude03

    Posted Apr 7, 2008 3:15 pm PT

    Cool that gives EA another company to put out of work when they take over. I hope this is a hint that Take2 isn't going to give in to EA's buy out.

  • zeeshan810

    Posted Apr 7, 2008 1:04 pm PT

    that''s sound cool* R* goooo Rrrrrrrr...RRRockstargames

  • JGoWild

    Posted Apr 7, 2008 11:56 am PT

    ha.....in your face EA.

  • maaly81

    Posted Apr 7, 2008 11:04 am PT

    good for them. if they buy up some other good mid major companies, they probably look to save themselves from being taken over

  • Phantsy16

    Posted Apr 7, 2008 10:37 am PT

    i aint suprised

  • jknight5422

    Posted Apr 7, 2008 9:23 am PT

    Funny. They're gobbling companies while they themselves are about to be gobbled up.

  • BigDaveyDogz

    Posted Apr 7, 2008 7:54 am PT

    Maybe Take Two and R* are trying to rival EA instead of being gobbled up by them...this would be fantastic in my opinion. And not because I'm an EA hater...I love a whole lot of EA games. I just want some competition so we all get better games!

  • Nintendo_Ownes7

    Posted Apr 7, 2008 6:38 am PT

    @ cowman_53 Really because I'm from Pennsylvania and I always considered it Mid-Atlantic because that is what the schools around here always told us.

  • Proman84

    Posted Apr 7, 2008 5:00 am PT

    So far. this company has had a pretty poor track record but I hope they'll improve. They'll probably make a PC port of "Bully", which is good news.

    Maybe Rockstar is just trying to make itself bigger, so it would be harder for EA to swallow it?

  • HK88

    Posted Apr 7, 2008 3:26 am PT

    I wonder what kind of game Rockstar would have made out of the fallout license that Beth bought. R's open world, do anything seemed perfect for Fallout. I hope this will slow EA's Blitzkrieg through the gaming world.

  • Erebus

    Posted Apr 6, 2008 11:38 pm PT

    I wonder how this will effect the proposed Take2over.

  • cowman_53

    Posted Apr 6, 2008 7:31 pm PT

    Nintendo_Ownes7, Pennsylvania is in New England... For all of the Glitches Bully has had I really did enjoy it. I think that if Mad Doc will have time to complete their projects they will make some really great stuff.

  • Diernes

    Posted Apr 6, 2008 3:42 pm PT

    Rockstar should have brought Iron Lore instead.... R.I.P

  • werc96

    Posted Apr 6, 2008 9:31 am PT

    You know what would be awesome, amazing,,,and a killer laugh?? If rockstar(2k) all of a sudden becomes this hugeeee developer after another big IP they come out with aside from gta....and they buy out EA..hahahaha...Id enjoy that.

  • Lord_Artix

    Posted Apr 6, 2008 9:26 am PT

    An attempt to hold off EA maybe?

  • pRADKL

    Posted Apr 6, 2008 9:06 am PT

    Mad Doc is good.Let's hope for some good games

  • salman06p0020

    Posted Apr 6, 2008 6:44 am PT

    Rockstar. Rockstar. Rockstar. EA just leave rockstar alone. Do anything you want but never buy off creativity with money.

  • Richmaester6907

    Posted Apr 6, 2008 6:35 am PT

    Maddoc is often rushed into making games maybe being part of rockstar will give them an oppurtunity to do better games if only rockstar had the star trek licence legacy 2 would be around the corner

  • mattcake

    Posted Apr 6, 2008 3:56 am PT

    Wow thats strange, after the laggy, messy port of Bully I almost expect a "bye Mad Doc, youve had your shot and you blew it" kind of attitude. I was under the impression the engine for Bully was written from the ground up by Mad Doc, and while there was no doubt a lot of legacy ps2 code unoptimised for the xbox (and a fair bit of gta3 code if you look around at the bugs like people doing 3 point turns in the middle of the road) it still ran very badly imo. Id like to see what they can do from scratch, but buying them seems unnecessary imo.

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