Dan Houser Talks with NY Times About GTA V and More

Posted by TreeFitty via joncreid November 10, 2012 : 12 Comments : 17,317 Views

The New York Times had a chance to sit down with Rockstar's Vice President of Creative Dan Houser for a small chat about making video games including a little background information on the making of Grand Theft Auto V.

GTA 5

Some GTA V-related quotes:
Q. What is that vision?

A. It’s the stuff we’re trying to realize with this game. It’s a world brought to life, in which you are able to exist and explore and have the benefits of some kind of narrative pull-through, a world that exists and doesn’t exist at the same time. We’ve made something that sort of is Los Angeles and sort of isn’t. And that’s deliberate, that it isn’t an exact replication of it. We wanted this post-crash feeling, because it works thematically in this game about bank robbers. And that seems like it’s going to endure through the next year.

Q. How does the new, three-character structure help you get closer to the ambitions you have for the medium?

A. Just at the conceptual level, the idea was three separate stories that you play in one game. The next bit was, let’s not have the stories intersect once or twice but have them completely interwoven. It felt like it was going to be a real narrative strength: you get to play the protagonist and the antagonist in the same story.

Q. At this stage in the process, what’s left to do with Grand Theft Auto V?

A. We are editing, fixing, removing, replacing, adding, avidly. It’s the equivalent of, if you wrote a book, and you had two million spelling mistakes. And you had to do them by hand, in a language you didn’t understand. But once it’s working, you can sit there and watch the world go by. I still find that magical about them. You don’t get that with anything else. The life might be fake, but it’s still the closest we’ve come to a living artwork. I think that’s the core appeal of them.

Read the full article on the NY Times website here. Thanks to joncreid for the heads-up!

Comments (12)

  • Madara Uchiha (Guest) November 12, 2012
    You get to play as the protagonist AND antagonist in the same story? Nice! Maybe that's because normally in a GTA game the antagonist was your 'friend' at the beginning and then leaves your for dead later on!
  • Random (Guest) November 12, 2012
    I think this game is what the mayans talked about... they only missed the date by a couple of months.. this game will be so awesome it will blow the minds of everyone, which destroys the world :(
  • jeremiah (Guest) November 12, 2012
    Yo that guy who commented about me i knew that i was just saying that he looked young in THIS screenshot.......
  • Extreme Gaming (Guest) November 11, 2012
    Micheal look young in this artwork....
  • IIx_WH3L4N_xII (Guest) November 11, 2012
    "jeremiah" he's in his 40's according to Rockstar

    he doesnt look like the hunch back old man I thought he would be though, looks like he's still got it in him.
  • nook (Guest) November 11, 2012
    Yo rockstar i just want say i love you all of u......and i mean it
  • jeremiah (Guest) November 10, 2012
    This guy is Micheal.In the tralier he looked old but in this he looks as if he is in his late 20s,and the gun looks awesome toooo
    Rockstar rocks
    New Zealand
  • cdog (Guest) November 10, 2012
    gta5 is gonna be the best game i hope there is a gta6 with cool and better stuff in it
  • O.o (Guest) November 10, 2012
    another plane in the sky and it looks big. i like planes there cool. cant wait to fly a crop duster im going to crop dust so many people online an off
  • Frank_Ohh (Guest) November 10, 2012
    GTA5 is going to be the best game this year & next year ! Trust me GTA5 made a sick come back !
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