Tag Archives: dan houser

Rockstar creative boss Dan Houser has said it picked development on Max Payne 3 over a potential Bully 2 at Rockstar Vancouver because of “limited bandwidth.”

More »

Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser and lead writer of Max Payne 3 has told Variety that the title’s multiplayer will contain story elements from the game’s main narrative.

More »

“It’s really important to us that the games (feel) kind of magical. It might annoy people that we don’t give out more information, but I think the end point is people enjoy the experience. … The less they know about how things are pieced together and how things are broken down and what our processes are, the more it will feel like this thing is alive, that you are being dragged into the experience. That’s what we want.” – Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser, speaking to Variety about the need to control the flow of information on the company’s games for a reason.

Rockstar has two titles seemingly planned for next year: Max Payne 3 in March and Grand Theft Auto V, which, while undated officially, is all but likely to be a 2012 game.

“We’re deliberately avoiding [first-person shooters] right now. It’s in our DNA to avoid doing what other companies are doing. I suppose you could say that Max Payne 3 is something close to an FPS, but there are really unique aspects to the setting and gameplay there, too, not just in the story. You have to have originality in your games; you have to have some kind of interesting message. You could say that the goalpoint of Rockstar is to have the players really feel what we’re trying to do.” – Rockstar VP Dan Houser to Famitsu, via 1UP. Thanks, Yoshi.

Rockstar creative boss Dan Houser has said “new things” will form the backbone of the company’s upcoming projects.

More »

Dan Houser, co-founder and vice president of creativity at Rockstar, has said his studio’s open-world GTA games aren’t about violence, but a way to provide players with a medium where freedom of choice is a constant.

More »

Grand Theft Auto III ended up being in Liberty City, the New York-like city from the series, but that may note have been the case, Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser has told IGN.

More »

Rockstar co-founders Dan and Sam Houser have made this year’s Top 100 MediaGuardian 2011 hitlist, the publication announced last night.

More »

Rockstar Games’ Dan Houser has said any films based on the developer’s properties would have to be produced in-house or in close collaboration, because they generally turn out as total rubbish.

More »

Creative director and co-founder of Rockstar Games, Dan Houser, has opened up to GameSpot about the decision to flood the sober, western world of Red Dead Redemption with “inherently ridiculous” zombies.

More »

Rockstar co-president Dan Houser has said development of Red Dead Redemption has been “challenging”, but insisted the wait will be worth it.

More »

Speaking in a interview with The Times, Rockstar co-president has said that games are “a popular and easy enemy.”

It comes as the latest media criticism is aimed squarely at Modern Warfare 2 for it’s airport level.

“Look, video games are a popular and easy enemy. It’s all part and parcel of doing something that’s not been done before. One of the things that’s always been exciting is the feeling of being in at the birth of a new medium, but of course the history of technology-driven art from the printing press onwards has been of people fighting against that stuff,” revealed Houser.

“It feels at last like we’re moving on from that debate. The audience is getting past 30 so it all becomes a bit silly. That’s not to say that all games are for all people; we’ve never said that. GTA has always been rated 18 and we’ve always been very happy with that.”

In the same interview, Houser talked about GTA V a bit. Lovely.

Speaking in a interview with The Times, Rockstar co-president Dan Houser has admitted that they would need to think of the main location and the main characters for Grand Theft Auto V before it goes into pre-development.

It’s really the first we’ve heard of any kinds of development work in GTA V, although a location for the game was teased in the manual for stand-alone DLC disc Episodes from Liberty City.

“We’ll think of a city first, then the characters,” admitted Houser.

Houser also spoke out on the controversy overshadowing the initial banning of Manhunt 2 in the UK, before it was lifted in March last year.

“Manhunt 2 was not a good situation. When a game gets banned, it means we’re not doing our first job, of making the investors back their money.”

Find the full interview through here.

Rockstar’s Dan Houser reckons GTA IV’s DLC episodes have to come to discs because digital distribution for larger items just isn’t there yet.

“I know, as a consumer, I’m more comfortable buying songs, which are almost like playing a jukebox, than I am buying movies as purely digital items,” Houser told USA Today.

“We all feel that way, so we can surely get more people to experience it if we put it on a disc.”

However you end up consuming Gay Tony, it looks as though it’s going to be awesome. Houser expanded on the plot.

“Luis has to do some of these favors and see if he can get them out of debt,” he added.

“The situation with Tony’s drug problems gets worse and worse, and Tony gets more and more out of control.”

Sounds fun. The episode’s first movie was released tonight. It’s awesome. The content releases on October 29.

Rockstar does not plan on turning the Grand Theft Auto series into a movie franchise any time soon.

As a matter of fact, vice president Dan Houser says the prospect of one considered, and then quickly tossed aside.

“We don’t believe that the Grand Theft Auto games, which are massive in scope and structurally complex, can be adequately compressed into a two-hour movie,” he told the LA Times. “It seems obvious to us that maintaining the long-term integrity of any entertainment property has been dependent on not making substandard spin-off products to people whose primary interest is making a quick buck.

“If we ever decide to do a film, it will be because we have resolved our creative doubts, and while retaining enough control to ensure that if the movie is terrible, at least we will know we ruined the property ourselves.

Via GTA.4net, Kotaku.

Red Dead Redemption is to have multiplayer containing stagecoaches and trains, Rockstar’s Dan Houser’s told IGN.

“Charging around on horses and stagecoaches and trains, shooting each other in a multiplayer world,” said Houser.

“It’s pretty epic, but it’s not finalized to talk about in any more detail than that. We’re still learning a lot as we learn how to do multiplayer games successfully.”

Houser said lessons learned on GTA IV would be applied to its upcoming western.

“We definitely feel there’s something really fun about third-person multiplayer games, just as we feel there’s something really fun with third-person single-player games.

“Even between GTA IV and the Lost and Damned we made quite a leap forward in how the games were structured and how they played and I think we’re looking to do that again with everything we do going forward.”

The game’s out this year.

Time’s put Sam and Dan Houser in the “artists and entertainment” section of its most influential people in the world issue, saying the pair have offered “quantum leaps in genre-defining fun”.

Their work’s on a par with that of Dickens, apparently:

“But what makes the Housers’ creation unparalleled is that their games have a take on American cultural history,” said Matt Selman, executive producer of The Simpsons.

“A smart take. A take that solidifies the culture’s vision of its recent past. Was it a prominent film or book or record that defined how we look back on gang-era Los Angeles? No, it was a video game that uses movies, music and writing to a greater effect.

“Who better summarized and satirized the drug-dealing Miami of the ’80s? Or the New York City of now? The Housers are doing the work of Tom Wolfe, creating tapestries of modern times as detailed as those of Balzac or Dickens. At least, I assume that’s true. Instead of reading those guys, I’ve been in Liberty City stealing tanks.”

Thanks, Kotaku.

Kotaku’s noticed that the Houser brothers were confirmed getting a Take-Two stock windfall of 2,849,003 shares in last night’s Q1 financials, which equates to roughly $18 million.

Nice work if you can get it.

The Housers are now tied into producing games for the company until 2012. With profit share included, obviously.

Get the rest of the news from last night’s release here.

Rockstar boss Dan Houser’s told the Telegraph that writing games allows more freedom than creating movies and books, despite the fact other mediums are more respected.

“I hope it’s long,” he said when asked on what timescale he thought games would be given the same respect as other mediums.

“It’s really fun at the moment because we’re not in any Academy and the medium’s not codified. There’s no accepted way of doing anything so that give us enormous pleasure because we can make it up as we go along,” he added.

“Movies and TV and books have become so structured in the way they have to approach things. Not working in that environment gives us enormous freedom. I’d rather keep the freedom and not have the respect.”

Tons through there.

Take-Two’s resigned Rockstar’s big bosses into contracts lasting to 2012, with the new agreements involving elements of profit-sharing.

Sam Houser, Dan Houser and Leslie Benzies have all inked the new deal.

Unsurprisingly, the publisher has also agreed to fund future GTA games.

“The entire Rockstar team has always been dedicated to making groundbreaking games with unprecedented production values, style and depth,” said Sam Houser.

“We are excited to continue our partnership with the new management team at Take-Two, who have helped us to protect the unique atmosphere that fosters creativity and innovation.”

The news came as part of Take-Two’s fourth quarter financials announcement.

Press release after the link.

More »