Talk:Rockstar North

Employee count + company name

According to the last financial statements via U.K Company House the company employs 1,320 people as of 2021 + apparently the company is now called Rockstar Games UK Limited instead of Rockstar North.(as of December 2021) Can someone change this?

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/03312220/filing-history (April 11 2022 file, Page 3) Timur9008 (talk) 09:26, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Are we sure that the company was not converted into a holding for all UK Rockstar studios, wherefore the employee count would encompass all of them? I would be surprised if the studio doubled in headcount in just two years. IceWelder [✉] 10:23, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Factually Incorrect Nationality of Rockstar North.

It appears that the current nationality of Rockstar North is factually inaccurate, and no official references regarding the company being British have been provided.

Navigating to the official company website at a glance provides company nationality https://www.rockstarnorth.com/ that being a Scotland flag (not British) located on the home page. Something else to consider is the headquarter location which is labelled Edinburgh, Scotland. Also contained within the main homepage.

Could someone please provide official references for Rockstar North being a British company? As official references for a Scottish company can be viewed by directly accessing the official company website domain. Please visit the screenshot below as reference: https://imgur.com/a/OBI4t9C 2A00:23C7:51B7:201:2D61:1E99:9824:F9ED (talk) 17:54, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Rockstar North's website indeed says "Scotland" and features the Scottish flag because the studio is in Scotland. Scotland, as you may know, is in the United Kingdom. Rockstar North is incorporated at the Companies House of the UK, follows UK company law, uses UK tax relief schemes, and so on. As already noted several times now (in edit summaries, previous dicussions, and the FAQ above), Wikipedia refers to companies by the demonym of their state. They have no "nationality" per se, and companies do not subscribe to WP:UKNATIONALS. As such, companies in Texas are American, not Texan; companies in Bavaria are German, not Bavarian; companies in Wales are British, not Welsh; and so on. IceWelder [✉] 18:26, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Hi, I'd just like to point out just because a company is incorporated at the Companies House doesn't make that specific company British. If that were the case every musical band would be tied to being British due to merchandise sold under the band name and label. On top of ALL of the founders of Rockstar North and their titles Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption etc being Scottish the company was itself founded and created in Scotland. Multiple direct references to the studio being Scottish can be observed on the company website. It is important to note that a British flag is not identified on the website. If you could please provide valid references to the company explicitly stating British that would be appreciated, otherwise the company is Scottish. 31.205.93.181 (talk) 12:00, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you just skipped over my above response, but we do not identfiy sub-national demonyms for companies in general. The place of incorporation is a factor for this practice, but far from the only one. For example, in the United States, companies are always incorporated at a state level (instead of a federal level), yet we call them "American", not "Delawarian", "Californian", and so on. Rockstar North is indeed Scottish, even Edinburghian, but per the reasons already outlined, we call it "British", which it is a well, just like all other UK-based companies. The flag shown on the company website has little to no relevance here; it could be the flag of Geneseo, Kansas, and still have no effect.

Sources calling Rockstar North (and its primary output, Grand Theft Auto) British are plenty: The series and studio passed the British cultural test to apply for tax relief, and the series was nominated as a British culture icon in the Great British Design Quest and was cited as "a prime example of British creative culture". The studio is additionally directly referred to as British in generalist sources like [1], [2], [3], and others; even in tabloids. Change to the established practice has been rejected in previous discussions and would not consensus to be amended. A wider consensus would need to be established at a centralized location for all UK companies, not the talk page of one. IceWelder [✉] 12:55, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

LAME entry

This article was recently added to Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars [4], for anyone interested.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 21:28, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Well, it was quickly reverted anyways. IceWelder [✉] 22:02, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

This review is transcluded from Talk:Rockstar North/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: IceWelder (talk · contribs) 22:23, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Vacant0 (talk · contribs) 10:39, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Hello! I'll be reviewing this article as part of the ongoing GAN backlog drive. --Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 10:39, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
It is reasonably well written. a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists): It is factually accurate and verifiable, as shown by a source spot-check. a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism): It is broad in its coverage. a (major aspects): b (focused): It follows the neutral point of view policy. Fair representation without bias: It is stable. No edit wars, etc.: It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate. a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall: Pass/Fail:
· · ·

Initial comments

• There is unlikely any copyright violation in the article. Earwig's Copyvio Detector has reported only 10.7% in similarity.
• There are no cleanup banners, such as those listed at WP:QF, in the article.
• The article is stable.
• No previous GA reviews.

General comments

• Prose, spelling, and grammar checking.
  • "During his studies, he had developed..." – remove had
    • I believe this is correct since his studies and the signing with Psygnosis principally occurred before he formed the company in 1988. IceWelder [✉] 12:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
  • "...including Mike Dailly, Steve Hammond, and Russell Kay, who he had met..." – change "who" to "whom"
    •  Fixed. IceWelder [✉] 12:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
  • "...the Dundee native David Jones..." – remove the
    • Hmm, that would make it a false title, which are not so hot right now. I'd rather avoid it. IceWelder [✉] 12:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
  • "...which had boosted interest for hobbyist programming..." – change "for" to "in"
    •  Fixed. IceWelder [✉] 12:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
  • "The quartet bonded over their shared interested in creating games..." – change "interested" to "interest"
    •  Fixed. IceWelder [✉] 12:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
  • "In search for a company name..." → "In his search for a company name"
    •  Fixed. IceWelder [✉] 12:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
  • "Menace was released in October 1988 after 18 months in development" – change "in development" to "of development"
    •  Fixed. IceWelder [✉] 12:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
  • "...label for budget-price games" → "label for budget-priced games"
    •  Fixed. IceWelder [✉] 12:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
  • "Hammond joined second on a part-time time basis..." – I think the second time is unnecessary
    • This explicitly refers to Hammond being the second employee. The order of the rest is not given in the sources, unfortunately. IceWelder [✉] 12:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
  • Considering that the article is written in British English, change "disks" to "discs"
    • Oh wow, I never knew this was a British vs. American thing. I always assumed "disks" referred to any kind of disk storage media and "discs" were compact discs specifically. I changed to "covermount" for simplicity, but I learned something new today! IceWelder [✉] 12:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
  • "In mid- to late 1996..." → "In mid-to-late 1996"
    • I was wondering what was correct when I wrote this originally. Online references give very different answers ([5][6][7][8]). I chose to just rephrase this and avoid the trouble. IceWelder [✉] 12:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
  • "...the studio's manager and it had..." → "the studio's manager, and it had"
    •  Fixed. IceWelder [✉] 12:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
  • "The development on Body Harvest continued torn between..." → "The development of Body Harvest continued to be torn between"
    • Rephrased since the differing requirements were not mentioned before. IceWelder [✉] 12:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
  • "...(since called the University of Abertay Dundee)..." → "(now called the University of Abertay Dundee)"
    •  Fixed. IceWelder [✉] 12:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
  • "...the exclusive rights to the game worldwide" – remove the first the
    • I thought the "the" implies that it is one singular set of exclusive rights, as opposed to just one of several (e.g. per platform). English isn't my first language, so I may be mistaken here. IceWelder [✉] 12:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
  • "House, alongside some of his former..." – replace "alongside" with "along with"
    • Rephrased to avoid "alongside", though I'm not a big fan of "along with" since the "along" feels like a redundancy. IceWelder [✉] 12:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
  • "its internal studio Rockstar Canada to develop" → "its internal studio, Rockstar Canada, to develop"
    •  Fixed. IceWelder [✉] 12:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
  • "...before its expanding scope led it to being considered" – replace "being" with "be"
    •  Fixed. IceWelder [✉] 12:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
  • "Rockstar North assisted Rockstar Vienna and later Rockstar London in the produced of a sequel..." – replace "produced" with "production"
    •  Fixed. IceWelder [✉] 12:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
  • "One half of the studio each worked..." – remove each
    • I meant to express that one half worked on one project and one on the other, not that one half made both. I rephrased this a bit for clarity. IceWelder [✉] 12:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
  • "...the listing removed from..." → "the listing was removed from"
    •  Fixed. IceWelder [✉] 12:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
• Checking whether the article complies with MOS.
  • Optional: Add alt texts to the images in the article.
    • I will probably do this just before taking it to FAC. IceWelder [✉] 12:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
  • The article complies with the MOS:LEDE, MOS:LAYOUT, and MOS:WTW guidelines. There is no fiction and embedded lists within the article, so I am skipping MOS:WAF and MOS:EMBED.
• Checking refs, verifiability, and whether there is original research.
  • References section with a {{reflist}} template is present in the article.
  • No referencing issues.
  • Reliability:
    • I doubt that we could use that YouTube reference. Are there any other references that could potentially back up those two sentences?
      • All information taken from that reference comes directly from Rockstar North's Brian Baglow, so it should be treated as a primary source in my opinion. None of the additional reporting from the uploading channel is used. I think it was a pretty cool find to give closure around the "Broadband Studios" topic, but I could phrase around the source if you think it must go. IceWelder [✉] 12:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
    • Other references are reliable.
  • Former names (in the infobox) are unsourced.
    • All important renames are stated verbatim in the body, I think. IceWelder [✉] 12:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
  • Spotchecked Ref 5, 6, 8, 9, 13, 14, 29, 31, 34, 39, 45, 49, 50, 51, 61, 71, 86, 106, 121, 124, 142–all verify the cited content. AGF on other citations.
  • Copyvio already checked.
• Checking whether the article is broad in its coverage.
  • The article is very detailed. Good job!
  • The article addresses the main aspects, and it stays focused on the topic.
• Checking whether the article is presented from an NPOV standpoint.
  • The article meets the criteria and is written in encyclopedic language.
• Checking whether the article is stable.
  • As noted in the initial comments, the article has been stable.
• Checking images.
  • Images are all properly licensed, including the YouTube video under a CC licence.

Final comments

@IceWelder: There's not too much to fix. Once these issues get addressed, I'll promote the article to GA status. The review will be on hold for a week until then. Cheers, --Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 11:35, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

@Vacant0: Thank you for taking this on, especially considering the article's length! I made a couple adjustments and left additional replies above. Regards, IceWelder [✉] 12:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Everything looks good now to me. I'll promote the article. I'll jump in and leave some comments when you start the FAC nomination. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 13:23, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by AirshipJungleman29 talk 00:12, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

134B Nethergate, Dundee

• ... that Rockstar North opened its first offices above a former fish and chip shop in Dundee (pictured) in 1989? Source: "The Deep Sea was a widely popular chipper and Dundonians visited in their droves. The chipper closed in 1986 and moved permanently across the street. DMA Design moved into the building in 1989 and served as their first headquarters. David Jones', the head of DMA Design, father-in-law was in actual fact, the owner of the Deep Sea chipper on the site." ("The history of the Wee Pink Nethergate House in Dundee"; ref. #18 in the article)
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Durrës Expedition
  • Comment: Since the offices opened on 1 August 1989, I'm hoping there is a small slither of a chance that this DYK can appear on the Main Page on 1 August 2024, the 35th anniversary, if some elements from the Prep can still be moved around.

Improved to Good Article status by IceWelder (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 34 past nominations.

IceWelder [✉] 16:10, 27 July 2024 (UTC).

•  Reviewing... Thebiguglyalien (talk) 05:16, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

• IceWelder, the article is good but the hook's sourcing needs a closer look.
• Promoted to GA immediately before nomination.
• Long enough
• I wasn't sure about the YouTube source in the article, but I checked if the GA review addressed it and it seems acceptable.
• It's not clear whether the source actually supports the hook. It only says they "moved into the building", not that they opened offices above it. I'm also not sure whether Dundee Culture is a reliable source, as it resembles a blog.
• If the sourcing does get worked out, the hook and image should be good.
• Forgot to sign and ping IceWelder Thebiguglyalien (talk) 05:40, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
  • Cheers for the review, @Thebiguglyalien:. Dundee Culture, despite being written mostly by one person, has been highlighted by other reliable sources and apparently won a heap of awards.[9][10][11] The writer is an ambassador to the city,[12] and the site apparently had 100 million visitors as of last year.[13] I think the source is qualified to talk about local topics. As for the location within the building, source goes on to say that "The headquarters of DMA Design were located on the upper floor of the building whilst there were several different tenants on the lower floor of the building." Additionally, you can see images of the former shop (The Deep Sea) in the embedded images from the Dundee City Archive. Regards, IceWelder [✉] 08:56, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
    • Thank you for the clarification! Should be good to go then. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:52, 28 July 2024 (UTC)