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Dan Houser has debunked a misconception that some fans and even game journalists apparently held about Rockstar Games.
In an interview last week, IGN senior executive editor Ryan McAffrey asked this question to Houser (edited for clarity):
So, I’ve said many times on IGN podcasts that the Rockstar North and the GTA Red Dead teams are possibly the only video game development team on Earth that has worldclass talent, unlimited resources and unlimited time.
As we’re seeing now with GTA, the wait for GTA 6 to do really anything and everything that you want. Whereas 99% of other games we play, there are compromises made, cuts that are made.
Would you agree with that assessment? And if you do agree with it, can you kind of think of what (sic) allowed you to do in GTA or Red Dead that maybe in a non-Rockstar setting would have to hit the cutting room floor?
The Rockstar Games Pedestal
This idea may speak to how successful Rockstar Games and the Grand Theft Auto franchise has been. Like Pokémon, Tetris, Fortnite, and others, Grand Theft Auto has been successful to a ubiquitous level.
And that kind of success makes it seem like everything they did was ‘obvious’ or ‘genius.’ Maybe it was with this mindset that even professionals who follow the industry have this pie-in-the-sky perception of a game studio like Rockstar.
Houser Brings Us Down To Earth
However, Dan Houser clarified that this was not the case at all. He said this:
Well, I think I felt we always had some time pressure and some money pressure, and certainly a lot of self-imposed real pressure, to make something great.
So, I’ve always felt I was working under lots of pressure, even though the pressure’s changed. But we could be imaginative.
Rockstar’s Success Was Not Guaranteed
As Houser previously revealed, they took a lot of risks making Grand Theft Auto III. Rockstar could not afford the motion capture they did for the game, and had to find a studio willing to do a daily rate.
When the studio brought the game to E3 in 2001, the other developers and publishers were ‘underwhelmed.’ They didn’t expect it to be successful.
Of course, it would go on to become a huge success. In fact, it saved their publisher Take-Two Interactive from potential bankruptcy.
What Rockstar’s story really tells us is that they succeeded because they took so many chances. Neither success nor failure is guaranteed in video games. This one time, they got the lucky end of the draw.
