Irony is a powerful thing, and it can be one of the most hilarious things to talk about when you look back at how wrong people were at either predicting something or feeling something would happen, and then it didn’t go in one way but went the complete other way, and so on. For Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser, he’s seen a lot of irony during his time with the company, but during a special interview at LA Comic Con, as noted by IGN, he did his best to answer as many questions as he could in about fifteen minutes.
One of the things he noted, though, was that while the team had its biggest ace in the hole at one point, ready to release to the world, the gaming public at large didn’t think that the game would be that good or would sell that much:
“We thought we had something exciting (the move to 3D for GTA III). The rest of the world did not seem to agree with us. They seemed completely underwhelmed by something we thought had the potential to be amazing. Some of the press still didn’t quite get it but the audience did.”
So, yeah, the gaming public was wrong, and on many levels. Not only did certain publishers, such as Microsoft, completely miss the chance to be a part of this franchise during its biggest move ever, but those who didn’t see the potential then had to watch in shock as the game moved millions of units in no time flat.
In fact, they were selling out so fast that Take-Two Interactive couldn’t keep up! No, literally. You see, at the time, the publisher wasn’t in the best financial state, and as a result, they could only print so many copies at a time. Every time they sent out a batch, they would sell out quickly.
“We couldn’t make the game quick enough. It just kept rolling. We kept thinking it would stop and it just never stopped.”
Indeed, it did not, and that helped ensure that Rockstar Games could continue to make its open-world titles that would keep the company alive and its publisher thriving for years to come. Now, we’re on the eve of the 6th mainline entry being brought into the world, and Dan Houser thinks it’ll do great, even though he’s officially not working on this.
Given all the hype surrounding the game, the real question is how fast it will sell upon launch.
