Yesterday, Rockstar Games released Manhunt 2 for Sony PlayStation 2, Sony PSP and Nintendo Wii. This blog post is not about the difficulties Take Two had getting this game on the market. I merely intend to correct an inaccuracy in the game’s credits, namely the over 55 missing Rockstar Vienna employees who worked on the game from January 2004 until the studio was closed down on May 11th 2006.
To the best of my knowledge, apart from the people who briefly went to Rockstar London to assist with development there, nobody from Rockstar Vienna is mentioned in the credits of Manhunt 2.
I have assembled the missing Rockstar Vienna credits to the best of my abilities. Over the course of 2.5 years various people joined and left the project. I have tried to list everyone under their primary position. One person asked during development that his name not appear in the credits: this request has been honored here.
People from other Rockstar Games studios also worked on this title. Their names and positions can be found in the credits of the released game.
Here are the missing credits:
Executive Producer:
Hannes Seifert
Producer:
Marin Gazzari
Hannes Seifert
Jurie Horneman
Associate Producer:
Kirsten Kennedy
Monika Sange
Lead Programmer:
Thaddaeus Frogley
Programmers:
Andreas Varga
Mark Wesley
Christian Bazant
Adrian Garrett
Andrew Howe
Peter Melchart
Uwe Pachler
Christian Schmutzer
Gareth White
Bjoern Drabeck
Lead Level Designer:
Gunter Hager
Level Designers:
Georg Gschwend
Jurie Horneman
Attila Malárik
James McLoughlin
Klaus Riech
Peter Saghegyi
Ngoc Nguyen
Lead Artist:
Leander Schock
Technical Artists:
Stefan Kubicek
Terence Kuederle
Level and Environment Artists:
Michal Drimalka
Daniel Edwards
Paul Ellinor
Maximillian Froemter
Alexander Hager
Guenter Hochecker
Ian Maude
John O’Malley
Oliver Reischl
Character Artists:
Julian Kenning
Ulrich Radhuber
Lead Animator:
Reinhard Schmid
Animators:
Roger Barnett
Steven Manship
Concept Artist:
Christian Koppold
Lead Audio & Video Engineer:
Tobias Kraze
Sound Designers:
Darren Lambourne
Dominik Mayr
Steven Blezy
Video Editor:
Bernhard List
Lead Tester:
Peter Ehardt
Testers:
Melissa Lumbroso
Simon Belton
Michael Borras
Helmut Hutterer
Sameer Malik
Joseph Sewell
Bryan Thompson
Kala Truman
Kieran Gaynor
Andrea Schmoll
Markus Igel
Localization:
Tobias Kraze
Bernhard List
Managing Directors:
Hannes Seifert
Niki Laber
Technical Director:
Tobias Sicheritz
Production Director:
Thomas Schweitzer
Creative Director:
Marin Gazzari
Administration & Finance Manager:
Dana Zajic
HR Manager:
Michaela Gazzari
Operations Manager:
Martin Filipp
Technics:
Chris Soukup
Thomas Zajic
Gernot Unger
Marco Pietsch
Peter Krakhofer
Markus Skrivan
Internal Tools Development:
Philipp Rettenbacher
Thomas Passauer
Martin Porocnik
Support:
David Huettner (Character Artist)
Donald Kirkland (Game Designer)
Sebastian Harras (Level Designer/Artist)
Jeff Wong (Animator)
Helmut Hutterer (Tester)
Gill Frank (Animator)
Kerstin Knesewicz (Management Assistent)
Kaweh Kazemi (Producer)
Petra Gregorowitsch (Management Assistant)
Melanie Friedl (Receptionist)
Additional Art:
RABCAT Computer Graphics GmbH
tidbit-images
I am writing this to state facts that I believe should have been made public, not to offer opinions or commentary on the reasons for why these credits were omitted.
I am sure someone somewhere is going to say that Rockstar Vienna was closed down because our work on Manhunt 2 was of insufficient quality. This is the kind of thing that cannot be proven one way or another, so all I will say is that this was not the case. I do not want to denigrate what Rockstar London did on Manhunt 2, but as far as I can tell (from analyzing screenshots, previews, etc.) the majority of the work we did at Rockstar Vienna is in the released game. Rearranged and modified, but it’s there.
I am disappointed and outraged that Rockstar Games tries to pretend that Rockstar Vienna and the work we did on Manhunt 2 never happened - the work of over 50 people, who put years of their lives into the project, trying to make the best game they could. I am proud to have been a part of that team.
34 Comments
I’m glad you posted this. It needed to be done.
Plus, you know, nice to see another Kazemi get some credit :)
Heh heh, thanks. I introduced you two at the GDC in 2004, do you remember?
I knew there was another Skywalker
Thank you for posting this. It’s incidents like this that reinforce the argument that game developers need a union that can ensure credits are published accurately. In our industry, careers can be made or broken with the flippant change of a game’s credits, usually written by producers with their own personal axes to grind. Almost every developer I know has a story like this, and it needs to stop.
One could say that I am a producer with a personal axe to grind :)
Credits are a sensitive issue and I am glad the IGDA, for instance, is doing some work in this area.
Now that you mention it, I do remember you introducing us!
“One could say that I am a producer with a personal axe to grind.”
Reading this prompted an image of you as a SNES-era sprite — complete with a +2 Producer Axe — jumping up and down and furiously switching left and right while looking for something to chop to pieces.
So maybe someone needs to create a game-production mod of a D&D game, complete with pre-production dungeons, corporate undead, etc.
hi guys,
i just read this and i think its really great that somebody mentionend the work from rockstar vienna !
since i study at the vienna university of technology (also doing game design) i know gunther hager who did some workshops with us
so thats what gunter couldnt tell us back then: manhunt2 was the project ;)
Well done sir! Having served many years in games, in art and design, I recall an incident years past when a producer claimed that he should have the design credit on my project because, that’s ‘the way things are done’. Needless to say the coder and I had suspicions at the time so added a hidden screen with our names listed with the correct credits.
Happy days.
Why not list the people who’se work is still in the game and what work it is…
For example your character, level and environment artists, if their work is in the game it would be pretty easy to point it out to everyone..
i think that would be the best way of proving your case…at producer level, well it’s difficult for the producers to get credit on game that had to be taken from them in order to get a product finished and released…remember Rockstar paid 55 people for a couple of years here and those people failed to turn around what was planned (of course i don’t know the details am sure it’s very complicated as f-ups always are)…i bet that hurt someone’s wallet to the tune of a few hundred thousand, that would piss me off, i bet it pissed off whoever decided to give Vienna the shot
This needed to be said, and I think you’re the right person to have done it. Thanks Jurie. All I can add is another voice on the “public record” backing up that everything Jurie says here is true. Those people all worked on the game, and as far as can be reasonably determined, the majority of the work done by the Vienna team remains in the final product.
Paul Davis who worked at R*North, and was a level designer on the first Manhunt, was the/a designer on the game after Vienna closed, and his name is also omitted from the credits.
If you don’t ship the game, you don’t get credit. This includes people who are sacked or dismissed before ship and studios who were involved in dev before being taken off the project because they weren’t so good.
Ubisoft did something similar with new Anno Addon. The whole QA department from sunflowers, who tested the whole Addon, is not mentioned.
This is normal behaviour for Rockstar.
In the same way people who had only a slight connection to a game appear in all credits if they are senior enough.
Stop moaning, you got paid didn’t you FFS!
Well, it seems this post has made it to the mainstream game news sources. Maybe you’re going to get rid of that ‘Naked WoW’ stigma after all :)
very good. time to get used to proper
crediting even if it hurts.
Rockstar really do seem to have joined the forces of evil recently, what with this and the crap about the Simpsons game.
Another company to add to the list of ones I’ll never support.
Sam Houser and Dan Houser are the biggest assholes in the entire videogame industry and should be banned. They are the cancer that is killing the company.
Thanks all for the nice comments (and mentions all over the web).
@Billy Brush and @Truth: I don’t really feel the need to prove what I am claiming here, since I doubt anyone is going to make a serious claim that we didn’t work on it. If you know what to look for there are enough signs in various nooks and crannies in the game: comments, graphical in-jokes, etc.
Please read my post. We were not taken off the project because we weren’t so good or because our work caused a failure. You either believe me or you don’t - I could say more about this, but I think it’s pointless. I wrote this post to correct the credits, that is all.
For what it’s worth: Various people on those credits would not have shipped the game even if we’d finished it, and they would have appeared in the credits anyway. “If you don’t ship the game, you don’t get credit” is a dumb rule.
@Schiffo: I am sorry to hear that, I expected better from Ubisoft.
Having been a Producer at Rockstar, I can say it was common practice, as enforced by the highest levels of management, to not include anyone in the credits if they were not there until the end of the project. This is a policy many of us disagreed with, and managed to subvert on rare occasions.
@”Travis Bickle”
Stop moaning, you got paid didn’t you FFS!
Sure.. But that isn’t the principle here.
Whistleblowers…we need more of them. Thanks, Jurie
Give them hell.. the sneaky bastards
Jurie: I commend you for this blog post, and for appreciating these people for the work and efforts they put into the title, however small.
As a writer and journalist myself, I’m more than well aware of how little credit is given to the very people who create the entertainment itself; whilst studios and publisher deserve the respect for funding many of these efforts, it doesn’t give them the right to spit on people’s work in the process.
As I’m sure you’re already aware, your blog entry have opened up a lot of awareness on the issue of crediting people’s work; hopefully this’ll create some much needed progress on a well overdue issue.
I think the greatest irony behind all this is Rockstar’s constant chest-beating about “upholding the creative integrity of Manhunt 2″ over the last few months. You can’t get any more hypocritical than that.
On a final note; It’s not much, but I’ve included your above credits in a news story about the issue on my own site (http://www.videogamechat.net/news/gaming-news/Manhunt-2-credit-cuts-outrages-the-industry-396) and will implement into the Manhunt 2 page along with the “official” credits as they deserve to be.
I played Manhunt 2 for the PSP and it was a good game. I do not think that it was fair for rockstar to shut down the Vienna studio. Im sorry about what happened though.
Thx Jurie for your loudmouth ;) and i´m proud, that i´ve been a part of that HELL OF A TEAM !
Greets & best wishes
the manhunt2 garbage man ;)
I´m sorry, men. This is a great game.
Was Vienna responsible for all the fabulous gay sex in Manhunt2, or was that added later?
You’re thinking of Mass Effect.
Seriously, that must have been added later. A lot of the atmospheric elements I have read about were not in the game when we worked on it (being pissed on, having excrement flung at you, vomiting, etc.) Not that it was a sweet and innocent game 18 months ago of course.
“usually written by producers with their own personal axes to grind”
Haha oh so true. If you happen to be working under a Mr Matt Cooper at the present time, be warned!
Just repeat to your self “he’s just a cock, he’s just a cock..”
On the subject of utterly predictable pandering:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2219544,00.asp
And I say that as someone who wouldn’t play Manhunt 2 for money.
Funny, I was just reading about that.
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