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Dan Houser made an appearance at this year’s The Game Awards.
Dan has recently started to make himself more visible and available to the public, taking interviews from around the world in recent months.
Of course, this is partly because he has been promoting his latest book, the physical print adaptation of A Better Paradise. But it does also seem that he just wants the public to see him now, after years of hard work focused on making Rockstar games like Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption.
Dan Houser’s Speech
Of course, Dan didn’t write this speech. But we thought you might like to read what he said when presenting the award for Best Narrative.
In the 29 years I’ve been doing this, we’ve seen games emerge as the premier artform of the 21st century.
More than any other medium, video games have the power to take the audience on a journey, both physically and emotionally.
Games don’t just tell us a story, they let us live it. The story comes with an experience, driven and shared by the player’s choices.
It’s a level of shared authorship that’s unique to video games. And when that all comes together, it’s almost magical.
The TGAs Best Narrative Award
These were the nominees for the award:
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Death Stranding 2: On The Beach
- Ghost of Yotei
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
- Silent Hill F
As you may already know, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 took this one, as well as sweeping the most number of awards this year. It even won the TGA’s Game of the Year.
What Did Dan Houser Do For Video Game Narratives?
Of course, the TGAs must have chosen to have Dan present this award for a reason. From his homages in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, all the way to his career defining work in Red Dead Redemption 2, Dan helped shape how video games tell stories, while polishing his craft within the medium itself.
As he has rightly intimated before, Rockstar was always the work of a team. But he can’t defer credit for this to other developers, not even the other writers.
We know that Dan had a leading role in telling these stories, and even in coming up with the ideas of some of these games from the onset. There’s also no denying his influence on video game narratives, especially ‘cinematic’ video games.
We look forward to seeing Dan in public more often in the future, and for him to share his thoughts on making games as well.
