Who Owns Rockstar

Who Owns Rockstar: Ownership, Structure and Key Facts

Rockstar is best known worldwide as the creator of the Grand Theft Auto video game series, but the “Rockstar” name is also associated with other businesses, including an energy drink brand and regional operating entities. When people search for “Who Owns Rockstar”, they are most often referring to the video game developer Rockstar Games. This article explains who owns Rockstar Games, how it fits within its parent company structure, and notes on related Rockstar-branded entities, with a focus on factual, verifiable information and relevance to the UK and South Africa where applicable.

Ownership of Rockstar Games

Rockstar Games is a video game publisher and developer originally founded in New York City in 1998. Today, Rockstar Games is wholly owned by Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., a publicly traded company listed on the NASDAQ stock market in the United States under the ticker symbol TTWO. According to Take-Two’s own corporate information, Rockstar Games operates as one of its two primary “publishing labels” (the other being 2K) within the Take-Two group structure, and Rockstar Games is not independently listed on any stock exchange. The official Take-Two corporate overview confirms that Rockstar Games is part of the Take-Two Interactive group of companies, under the label structure described on the company’s “Our Story” and corporate pages at Take-Two Interactive’s official website: https://www.take2games.com.

Because Take-Two Interactive is a publicly traded company, it is ultimately “owned” by its shareholders rather than a single individual. Major shareholders in Take-Two typically include institutional investors such as investment funds and asset managers. Shareholder information, including significant institutional holders, can be verified through regulated market disclosures and financial information providers that report on NASDAQ-listed companies. However, no single shareholder is disclosed as having full control of the company in the way a private owner would; instead, control is dispersed among many investors through publicly traded shares.

Founders and brand history

Rockstar Games was founded by a group of industry figures who had previously worked under the BMG Interactive and DMA Design lineage, which later evolved into the Rockstar brand when Take-Two acquired certain assets in the late 1990s. The founding team included Sam Houser, Dan Houser, Terry Donovan, Jamie King and Gary Foreman. The official Rockstar Games company website, available at https://www.rockstargames.com, provides background on the Rockstar brand and its major series such as Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, but it does not list ownership information; that is supplied at group level by Take-Two Interactive.

Although the Houser brothers and other founders played a major creative and executive role in Rockstar Games’ history, they are not listed in recent public filings as controlling owners of Take-Two Interactive. The company’s modern ownership is tied to its status as a public company listed in the United States, with shares held by a wide range of public market investors.

Corporate structure and subsidiaries

Rockstar operates through a group of studios and entities in multiple countries, all ultimately controlled by Take-Two Interactive. These include well-known development studios such as Rockstar North, Rockstar Leeds and Rockstar Lincoln in the United Kingdom, and Rockstar Games entities in the United States and other regions. The list of global studios is presented on the official Rockstar Games website under its “Studios” section at https://www.rockstargames.com/careers/studios, which confirms the locations and names of these entities.

For UK relevance, Rockstar North Limited is a key company within the group. Rockstar North is widely recognised as the lead studio behind the Grand Theft Auto series. According to public filings accessible via the UK’s official Companies House register (https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk), Rockstar North Limited is incorporated in Scotland and is a subsidiary within the Take-Two corporate group. Its filings identify the entity’s registered office, directors and its status as an indirect subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., via intermediate holding companies. The Companies House record indicates that the “ultimate parent company” of Rockstar North Limited is Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., confirming that Rockstar North, and by extension its output, is controlled through Take-Two’s listed structure rather than being independently owned.

Other Rockstar-labelled entities in the UK, such as Rockstar Games London Limited or Rockstar Lincoln Limited, are similarly recorded at Companies House as subsidiaries within the same Take-Two group of companies. These records consistently identify Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. as the ultimate controlling party, meaning that when asking “Who owns Rockstar?” in relation to the UK-based Rockstar studios, the factual answer remains that they are owned through Take-Two Interactive.

Rockstar’s presence and relevance in the UK and South Africa

The Rockstar brand has a strong operational presence in the United Kingdom, particularly through Rockstar North in Edinburgh and other studios in cities such as Leeds and Lincoln. These studios contribute to the development, testing and support of Rockstar’s game portfolio. The UK operations are governed by UK company law and report to UK regulators such as Companies House, which provides official legal confirmation of their ownership and parent companies.

In South Africa, there is no major stand-alone Rockstar Games development studio equivalent to Rockstar North listed on the official Rockstar studios list at https://www.rockstargames.com/careers/studios. However, Rockstar’s titles, including Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2, are widely sold in South Africa through authorised retailers and digital platforms such as the PlayStation Store, Xbox and PC distribution platforms. The games reach the South African market via regional publishing and distribution arrangements under the Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar Games labels, rather than through a locally incorporated Rockstar development entity. Corporate filings for primary ownership still track back to Take-Two Interactive as the listed parent in the United States.

Distinction from Rockstar Energy

When asking “Who Owns Rockstar?”, it is important to distinguish Rockstar Games from Rockstar Energy, a separate business unrelated to the video game company apart from sharing the “Rockstar” name. Rockstar Energy is an energy drink brand that was acquired by PepsiCo, Inc. in 2020. According to PepsiCo’s official corporate announcements and investor information at https://www.pepsico.com, PepsiCo completed the acquisition of Rockstar Energy Beverages to expand its presence in the energy drink sector. That means the Rockstar Energy brand is now part of the PepsiCo portfolio of beverages. It has no corporate connection to Rockstar Games or Take-Two Interactive.

This distinction matters because search results for “Who Owns Rockstar” can refer either to the video game label (owned by Take-Two Interactive) or to the energy drink (owned by PepsiCo). Both uses of the Rockstar name are protected brands in their own industries, but their ownership structures, corporate groups and regulatory filings are entirely separate.

Legal entities, regulation and public information

For corporate and ownership information relating to Rockstar in the UK, the authoritative public source is Companies House. Each Rockstar-related company registered in the UK has its own page on the official government site, showing directors’ names, company numbers, registered offices and confirmation statements. These records also set out the immediate and ultimate parent companies, which establish that the UK Rockstar entities are controlled by Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. via holding companies such as Take-Two Interactive Software Europe Limited or similar intermediaries, as cited in the Companies House filings at https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk.

For the broader group, Take-Two Interactive’s own investor relations materials and annual reports, which can be accessed via its official investor portal at https://ir.take2games.com, provide verified details about its consolidation of Rockstar Games as one of its publishing labels, its reporting segments and risk disclosures. These filings are submitted to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and are governed by US securities regulation, which gives them a high reliability as factual sources about corporate ownership and control.

Contact details and public information

Rockstar Games operates official websites for its games, careers and customer support, such as https://www.rockstargames.com/support, which provide web-based help resources and forms. However, these pages typically do not list direct telephone numbers or email addresses for general corporate enquiries. Similarly, Take-Two Interactive’s investor relations site lists contact points for investors and media but does not always provide a single global public-facing telephone number for Rockstar itself. Based on a review of the public-facing Rockstar Games website and related official pages, no central, universally applicable public contact details dedicated solely to ownership or corporate queries were clearly presented. No public contact details found.

Summary: Who Owns Rockstar?

In ownership terms, Rockstar Games is a wholly owned publishing label within the Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. group. All key Rockstar studios, including UK-based entities such as Rockstar North Limited, are recorded in official registries as subsidiaries whose ultimate parent company is Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., a NASDAQ-listed public company as confirmed by Take-Two’s own corporate information at https://www.take2games.com and official UK records at Companies House.

Separately, Rockstar Energy is an energy drink brand owned by PepsiCo, Inc. following a completed acquisition verified by PepsiCo’s own corporate communications at https://www.pepsico.com. The two Rockstars are unrelated businesses operating in different sectors.

Therefore, when the question “Who Owns Rockstar?” is asked in the context of video games and properties such as Grand Theft Auto, the factual answer is that Rockstar is owned by Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., with operational studios and entities in the UK and other regions managed as subsidiaries within that global public company structure.