6 posts and columns on Rockstar Games

OnLive Streams Xbox-Quality Games Like L.A. Noire to the iPad

in Commerce on December 8, 2011 at 1:06 am PT

OnLive, a Pandora-like service for videogames, has figured out a way to bring console-quality games to the iPad and Android tablets.
OnLive_streaming on tablets

U.S. Steps Up Probe of Nortel Patent Deal

in News on July 30, 2011 at 5:20 pm PT

The Justice Department is intensifying an investigation into whether tech giants including Apple, Microsoft and Research in Motion could use a recently acquired trove of patents to unfairly hobble competing smartphones using Google’s Android software.

Why We Can't Stop Playing

in News on November 30, 2010 at 5:00 am PT

Not since the invention of bacon and eggs has the collision of fowl and swine tasted so good. A game called Angry Birds is dominating the best-selling-applications charts for Apple’s iPhone with a simple, whimsical premise: Players turn different species of scowling birds into projectiles with which to crush a collection of grunting pigs scattered around various ramshackle structures. More than 12 million copies of Angry Birds have been sold since it went on sale late last year, most of them 99-cent downloads for iPhones and iPod touches, according to Rovio Mobile Ltd., the Finnish company that created the game.

Supreme Court to Hear Videogames Case

in News on April 27, 2010 at 5:00 am PT

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide the constitutionality of a California law that seeks to ban the sale of violent videogames to minors. Two lower courts struck down the law as an unconstitutional restriction on freedom of speech.

The Wii Version Will Come With a WiiBong and WiiSyringe

in News on September 30, 2008 at 12:04 am PT

Oh, look: Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars has “reignited” the debate about violent videogames. What a surprise. Last time GTA and its publisher, Rockstar Games, sparked this kind of outrage it was for “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” and the infamous “Hot Coffee mod”–a patch that unlocked an explicit but anatomically improbable sex scene between the game’s protagonists.

The Tech 10: SoundExchange Cuts Deal, Yahoo Plans Video Makeover and Teen Geek Frees iPhone

in News on August 24, 2007 at 11:54 am PT

Note: John Paczkowski is on vacation and won’t be writing or posting videos until he returns Monday. To keep you abreast of tech news while he’s away, we’re compiling a daily digest of 10 must-read tech stories. We’re calling it the Tech 10 and it appears below.
  1. Music to their ears: SoundExchange, the recording-industry group that has been in a protracted battle with Internet radio companies, has reached a deal with them on royalties. The Associated Press reports that SoundExchange would cap fees at $50,000 a year for Webcasters offering more than 100 channels–down considerably from the much higher per-channel tax it had sought to impose.
  2. Playing catch-up with YouTube, Yahoo plans to revamp its video portal. Miguel Helft of the New York Times writes that Yahoo will consolidate the Internet site’s somewhat messy video interface into a more interactive one enabling users to view and share videos and compile playlists. Of the plans, Helft quotes Mike Folgner, general manager of Yahoo Video: “We’re going to make it a more cohesive experience. Video is going to be everywhere on Yahoo.”