David Jones starts DMA Design in Dundee
A Timex redundancy, an Amiga 1000, and the bedroom studio that would become Rockstar North
Quick facts
- Location
- Dundee, Scotland
- Founded by
- David Jones
- Early hires
- Mike Dailly, Russell Kay, Steve Hammond
- Origin
- Kingsway Amateur Computer Club
- First game
- Menace (1988, Psygnosis)
- Name origin
- “DMA”, from the Amiga's direct memory access manuals
- Became
- Rockstar North
What happened
David Jones was made redundant from Dundee's Timex plant and put the money toward a Commodore Amiga 1000, coding his first game, Menace, in his bedroom and during lecture time at college. He signed Menace to the publisher Psygnosis at a video game convention in 1987, trading under the name DMA Design, which he lifted from the direct memory access chapters of the Amiga's programming manuals. The company was formally established in Dundee in 1988, and Jones hired friends he had met at the Kingsway Amateur Computer Club around 1984: Mike Dailly, Russell Kay, and Steve Hammond. Menace sold fifteen thousand copies in 1988.
Why it matters
The Grand Theft Auto lineage runs back to this bedroom operation. DMA Design created the original Grand Theft Auto in 1997, and the studio later became Rockstar North. A Rockstar Games timeline has to start here, years before Rockstar itself existed, because the franchise that defines the company was born in Dundee.
How we know
Sources date the founding differently depending on what counts as founding. Co-founder Steve Hammond's first-hand account dates the company to 1988, when it was formally established; the Business History Review dates DMA to 1987, when Jones was already trading under the name and signed the Psygnosis deal. We date this event to 1987, the year the work began, and note the 1988 establishment in the record.
Sources
- Denise Tsang. Innovation in the British Video Game Industry since 1978 (Business History Review 95) (2021) · Peer-reviewedcambridge.org · Cited as a "journal" source (no stronger domain match).
- Steve Hammond. About DMA Design (co-founder's first-hand account) · Unverified sourcestevehammond.org · Cited as a "website" source (no stronger domain match).
- V&A Dundee. Scottish Design Icons: Lemmings (V&A Dundee) · Reputable sourcevam.ac.uk · The domain "vam.ac.uk" is on our Reputable source registry.
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Part of a timelineRockstar Games11 events · From a Dundee bedroom studio to Grand Theft Auto VI.View all →