Before they were known as Rockstar North, the creators of a little game called Grand Theft Auto, the studio was known as DMA Design. A small team that would go on to change the video game industry forever, the beginning of DMA Design was scrappy, fueled by dreams of hitting it big. Despite the massive success they now garner, there was a time during DMA Design’s infancy when the company was on the ropes, with projects getting canned left and right, leading to an uncertain future. Then, in 1991, everything changed with the release of an unassuming puzzle game featuring green-haired creatures: Lemmings.
DMA Design Starts Small
DMA Design was originally founded by Scottish creator, David Jones. After years of tinkering with and studying computers, he dropped out of university to create his own games. Jones found early success by partnering with British developer/publisher Psygnosis, eventually releasing his first game, Menace. Published as a budget title, Jones barely made a buck for each game sold, but with sales exceeding 20,000 copies, it was enough seed money to hire a few university buddies, namely Mike Dailly, and Russell kay. Together, they created a sequel to Menace called Blood Money, resulting in 40,000 copies sold. However, after moving into their first office space and further expanding their development team, things started to take a turn for the worse.
Although DMA Design continued to grow in this period, their in-production games started to suffer. A beat ’em up called Gore! was canceled due to a lack of hardware power, a platformer called Cutiepoo failed to make significant progress after a year of development, and Jones also stopped working on his next game, Walker. Despite this grim time, ideas were still brewing. In his spare time, Mike Dailly whipped up an animation of a tiny character exploding and shared it with the team. Russell Kay then expanded upon this idea, creating a demo of a puzzle game where the player tried to prevent these tiny characters from dying. Everyone loved the idea, and after roughly another year of development, Lemmings was released in 1991 for the Amiga.
Love for Lemmings
From the jump, Lemmings saw staggering success, selling over 55,000 copies on its first day alone. As money rolled in, DMA rushed to port Lemmings to over platforms, while also creating sequels and expansion packs. This deluge of attention boosted their street cred in the gaming industry as well, and they soon partnered with other big companies like Nintendo. As the years passed, a few projects failed to meet expectations, and Jones ultimately sold DMA Design to a company called BMG Interactive, which was then acquired by Take-Two, along with the rights to special project called Grand Theft Auto.
In 1997, Grand Theft Auto hit store shelves and the rest is gaming history. Surrounded by controversy, the series marked a cultural shift in gaming, specifically the 2001 sequel, Grand Theft Auto III. DMA Design eventually rebranded as Rockstar North, and went on to produce other hit titles like Manhunt, Red Dead Redemption, and Max Payne 3. All this, thanks to Lemmings, the peculiar puzzle game that saved DMA Design from certain disaster. In February of 2026, Lemmings celebrated its 35th anniversary, having sold over 20 million copies across all systems. If you’re one of the many people looking forward to Grand Theft Auto VI, consider killing some time by playing Lemmings, as without it, the series may never had existed in the first place.
The post How Lemmings Led to Grand Theft Auto appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.
