Red Dead Redemption has been doing exceptionally well and Rockstar just didn't anticipate how successful the game was going to be. But, there's still no update or confirmation from Rockstar whether there is going to be a Red Dead Redemption PC Port or not.
Recently however, I noticed something a little interesting from our favorite little team in Oakville, Ontario.
Rockstar Toronto has been seeing a lot of action these past few months and they're on a hiring spree for new talent. Now, job postings are worded in such a way not to reveal any games that they're working on.. but a recent Senior Animator posting (Dec 17) caught my attention.
Here's what they wrote:
"At Rockstar Toronto, we provide a highly creative work environment and develop some of the most respected and widely recognized titles in video games for current and next-gen consoles including: The Warriors, ManHunt 2, Bully, Grand Theft Auto IV and Red Dead Redemption."
The reason that this is so interesting is that Rockstar Toronto has NEVER been associated with Red Dead Redemption.
If you've read my earlier post on RDR, you'll know that Rockstar Toronto did indeed do a little outsourced work for RDR. However, they were never recognized for that work by anyone, Rockstar Toronto is NOT listed in the credits, and even the R* Toronto and the HQ websites do NOT attribute RDR with R* Toronto in any way! If you check out R* Toronto's release list - Red Dead Redemption is NOT listed. Officially, RDR is not linked to R* Toronto in any way.
This is actually the first time Rockstar Toronto has officially associated themselves with Red Dead Redemption, and Rockstar claims that it's "future" work (ie, "next-gen consoles") too. =]
Very interesting..
Not only that, check out that "At Rockstar Toronto, we provide.." line - it's actually a standard recruiting post that they have used many times. HOWEVER, all of their past job posts only stated "The Warriors, ManHunt 2, Bully and Grand Theft Auto IV." It's suddenly changed in the past week to include RDR. Hmmm...
This all might just be an accident by their recruiting department (ie, either they weren't aware that RDR shouldn't have been associated with R* Toronto OR they accidentally revealed that R* Toronto is working on it.) With RDR being such a huge success though, I'm going to remain optimistic that they'll be working on RDR PC once they get LA Noire out of the way.
In related news, Take Two just filed trademarks for LA Noire related merchandising (e.g. "ring tones, wallpapers, screensavers, graphics, digital music files, videos, films and other multimedia materials" etc.) I guess they're expecting it to be a pretty big hit. I just can't see it though, even the title alone targets a niche market of gamers.
At the same time, they have also filed two other trademarks. The big one was "ROCKSTAR FILMS", a new division of Rockstar that will be producing animated motion pictures starting with Red Dead Redemption machinima. The third new trademark was for Red Dead Redemption films (Note: animated motion picture, not live action). It looks like Take Two wants to do the same thing Bobby Kotick mentioned a few months ago.
* Update:
They've also updated their Rockstar Games and R* Trademarks to include "Animated motion picture films". They have trademarked an animated series, film and "TV programs" planned for LA Noire if it's a big hit.
There's also a trademark for a Bioshock Infinite "live action motion picture", as well as videos, films, and an animated series. (Rockstar has a webpage planned where users can watch animated and live-action series based on their games.) The Line has also been trademarked for films, an animated series, and TV programs. Bioshock was the only one with "live action" mentioned however. =]
It's a good business plan.. might as well utilize those hundreds of idling Cinematic Artists rather than the seasonal firing-and-rehiring process.
