Rockstar Games’ co-founder and former Grand Theft Auto director and lead writer, Dan Houser, has opened up about why he left in 2020. Houser appeared on BBC Radio 4 as part of the press tour for his debut gaming-themed novel, A Better Paradise. He also looked back on his long career — and the pressure that came with it. Those massive games eventually pushed him to leave the prestigious company.
According to Houser, Rockstar’s games were exciting to make since he ‘loves writing prose,’ but the pressure eventually became too much. Each one locked him in for years, as every department had to move in sync toward one giant finish line.
Because the projects were really long and tough and, you know, take a long time to make.
It can be a tough journey getting things at that scale with that many moving parts finished, and you’ve got 450,000 lines of dialogue and equal number of parts of other things all trying to assemble itself. It’s this huge production experience and that swallows all of your time for many years at a time.
I don’t know if I had another one of those games in me.
Previously, there were rumors that Houser left due to internal creative disagreements and because of the intense crunch culture following Red Dead Redemption 2. Leaker Tez2 said he even clashed with his brother and fellow cofounder, Sam Houser, during early GTA 6 development. However, none of these theories were ever confirmed, and eventually, in 2020, Rockstar stated that he was leaving after an ‘extended break.’
Houser was also asked if he ever imagined GTA and RDR would go on to become such cultural juggernauts, and he gave full credit to the team.
“I think the scale of the last couple [of games] was beyond any imagining,” Houser said. “I worked with incredibly talented people. So thinking that group — I was lucky to piggyback off their vast brains — thinking that group could do something amazing.”
“That’s why I worked there. Because I was always wanted to work with brilliant people,” he added.
Later in the interview, Houser was asked whether the games industry is still a good place to work. He said ‘fundamentally’ yes and encourages others to pursue it as a career. That’s despite recent layoffs across the industry and Rockstar’s own problem with unionization and crunches.
“No industry is ever perfect. But my experience in the games industry has been [good],” Houser explained. “All companies are different, but it’s fundamentally a positive and supporting environment for most people, most of the time. But nowhere is perfect.”
Now, Dan Houser is moving into new creative territory with his novel and his studio, Absurd Ventures. The team is already working on a game adaptation of A Better Paradise, though it’s still in ‘early, early’ development stages.
