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We now have a surprising new rumor about Dan Houser’s exit from Rockstar Games.
As reported by RockstarIntel, Tez2 shared this information on GTAForums.
Tez said this:
He left over a disagreement with his brother about the company’s direction, as per two former devs. If it was due to union busting or working conditions, he would have left in 2018 as a way of apologizing for his comment quoted in Schreier’s article.
While Tez’s explanation is straightforward, he also alludes to other speculated reasons for Dan’s exit. Let’s review those for better clarity.
It Wasn’t About Alleged Union-Busting
As you may know, Rockstar laid off some employees in the UK and Canada. Rockstar claimed that these layoffs happened because of leaks.
This is a touchy subject because Rockstar was accused of union busting. The company faces protests, but as multiple sources have confirmed, these layoffs did not lead to Grand Theft Auto 6 itself getting delayed.
It Wasn’t About The 2018 Issue
Dan faced a different issue that also happened to be about Rockstar’s employment practices. In an interview, he claimed that Rockstar’s workers were working 100 hour weeks to get Red Dead Redemption 2 finished in time.
It later emerged that this situation was a misunderstanding. Dan was only referring to the top five managers on Red Dead Redemption 2 who chose to work long hours themselves.
If you’ve worked in a company that does project based work, you can understand this mindset. Management works above and beyond what is reasonable to help motivate everyone in the team.
That situation led to Rockstar changing their employment practices in the US. Unfortunately, Dan made his exit from Rockstar two years afterwards.
Now, some fans did speculate that that incident and his exit were related, in spite of the gap between them. Tez’s information corroborates the idea that the situation did not ultimately lead to his exit.
What Happened With The Housers?
This does seem inappropriate to talk about. But you can already see from the GTAForums thread that people are already talking about it.
So yes, the fans are now left wondering what disagreement happened between the brothers Dan and Sam Houser. It seems that Dan still looks up to Sam, based on his latest interview with Lex Fridman.
Maybe it’s just like what happens when bands break up. There may be no personal animosity, but the chemistry needed for collaboration is no longer there.
Dan seems happy with his new Absurd Ventures, and hopefully, Grand Theft Auto 6 will show us Sam has been cooking this whole time as well.
