DMA Design becomes Rockstar North
Fifteen years after the Timex redundancies, the Dundee studio takes the New York name
Quick facts
- New name
- Rockstar North Limited
- Offices
- Dundee and Edinburgh, Scotland
- Primary record
- Take-Two 10-K, December 2002
- What it built next
- Vice City, San Andreas, GTA IV, GTA V, GTA VI
What happened
In 2002, the name DMA Design retired. Take-Two folded the studio fully into the Rockstar identity, and by the time the company filed its annual report that December, the entity signing the office leases in Dundee and Edinburgh was called Rockstar North Limited, formerly DMA Design Limited, in the filing's own words. Accounts of the transition record it as a two-step rename during the year, with the studio briefly badged Rockstar Studios before Rockstar North stuck.
Why it matters
The name that started as a joke about Amiga manuals was gone, but the studio was not: as Rockstar North it would build Vice City, San Andreas, GTA IV, GTA V, and GTA VI. Every timeline event after this one happens under the name it still carries.
How we know
The rename is primary-verified by Take-Two's fiscal 2002 annual report, which names Rockstar North Limited as formerly DMA Design Limited with offices in Dundee and Edinburgh. The two-step of the rename during 2002 is recorded in Anderson and Levene's history of the British games industry; we date the event to the year, which is what the primary record supports.
Sources
- Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc.. Take-Two Interactive annual report (10-K) for fiscal year 2002, filed December 2002 (SEC EDGAR) (2002) · Primary source (author-declared)sec.gov · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- Magnus Anderson and Rebecca Levene. Grand Thieves & Tomb Raiders: How British Video Games Conquered the World (2012) · Reputable sourceCited as a "book" source (no stronger domain match).
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