Tag Archives: sam houser

Take Two and Rockstar have formally announced that development on Grand Theft Auto V is well underway, confirming it will take place in Los Santos and within its surrounding areas.

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

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Rockstar’s quietly launched the Rockstar Pass onto Xbox Live Marketplace, but has dropped more details on it and upcoming DLC for the Team Bondi thriller as promised.

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Rockstar’s announced four new Red Dead Redemption DLC packs for release on PSN and Xbox Live Marketplace beginning next month.

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Rockstar Games has announced that Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is heading to PSP as both a downloadable title and in UMD format.

“We’re proud to extend this truly unique handheld Grand Theft Auto experience to PSP and offer a downloadable version of Chinatown Wars for PSP Go!,” said Rockstar founder Sam Houser.

“Rockstar Leeds has shown incredible talent in creating games that raise the bar in terms of depth and innovation on portables, and with Chinatown Wars we have a rich, fast-paced, and incredibly addictive entry into the series.”

SCEA CEO Jack Tretton was equally delighted with news: “Rockstar’s work with the GTA series has been an enormous part of the success of PlayStation platforms,” he said.

“We’re excited to welcome the critically acclaimed Chinatown Wars to the outstanding line-up of great games headed to the PSP platform this fall.”

Press release after the break.

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Rockstar founder Sam Houser has said that he is more than excited by PS3 exclusive Agent, announced at Sony’s E3 press conference last night, and he feels it will be the “ultimate action game.”

“We have always enjoyed making action games, and with Agent we are making what we believe will be the ultimate action game,” said Houser.

“Agent is a game we have wanted to make for a long time. The team in Edinburgh is doing an amazing job combining intense action, atmosphere and story in a great period setting to create something that feels quite unique.

“We cannot wait for people to experience this game.”

Full press release after the break.

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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.

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.

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Rockstar’s Sam Houser reckons Games for Windows Live is ideal for the PC version of GTA IV. Luckily, then, the game’s online modes will be exclusively matched to the service when it launches on November 18.

“We’re incredibly proud of the deep, customisable multiplayer experience that Grand Theft Auto IV offers players,” said Houser.

“As we work toward the release of the PC version, Games for Windows – Live affords us the opportunity to seamlessly translate the multiplayer console experience for PC gamers. The service is a natural fit for the platform and we strongly believe it will help in building a strong online community around GTA IV PC.”

So there we are.

Sam Houser loves to be hated. He even thinks it’s an honour. He told Develop so.

“Most of the people who hate us are people it is truly an honour to be hated by – reactionary creeps with strange agendas – and the Daily Mail,” he said.

“Most people who know about modern pop culture know about GTA and like or dislike it on its own merits.”

Houser added: “I think we are both depressed at how boring we really are and how unexciting even the worse fabrications and exaggerations are when you read about them.

“None of it seems very rock and roll, so we find it a little sad, when there are probably better stories that could be written about both us and the industry/medium.

“No sharks, groupies or pounds of coke or anything fun at all. We read like angry dorks, which might be true, but is certainly not very exciting.”

More through the link.

BioShock dev lead Ken Levine has spoken for the first time about his Take-Two compadres at Rockstar, saying the Sam Houser is the “most intense guy in the world” and that he shares the Houser’s method of creating great games: “digging your fucking teeth in.”

“He is absolutely the most intense guy in the world.” Levine told VG247. “He’s like Rasputin, you know. He’s intense.

“But that’s how you make great stuff. You don’t make great stuff by wearing a nice sweater and drinking a martini: you make great stuff by digging your fucking teeth in.”

Levine told us that he’d got to know Sam Houser since BioShock’s launch.

“I know Sam now,” he said. “I’ve been lucky enough to get to know Sam.

“Since BioShock’s come out – I was a huge fan of his, and I think he really liked the game, and he felt is was something that was greatly interesting. I can’t speak for Sam, you know, but that’s my interpretation of what he said.”

He added that he has a huge amount of respect for the Rockstar massive, calling the Housers the “Spielbergs” of games.

“They’re the Spielbergs, you know,” he said. “The Spielbergs of our industry. The amount of revenue that guy generates… When you meet him he’s a really self-effacing guy.”

Levine was talking at last week’s Develop Conference in Brighton, UK.

Rockstar’s just confirmed GTA IV for a November 18 launch for PC, replete with “expanded” multiplayer modes.

“We are very excited to be releasing the PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV,” said Sam Houser, Founder of Rockstar Games. “The whole team is dedicated to bringing an amazing gaming experience to the PC. The game looks and plays beautifully on PC and we can’t wait for people to play it.”

Europe gets it on November 21. Press release after the drop.

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More from the MCV Sam Houser interview. Apparently the high-ups want Rockstar dead. Life’s not really like a film, Sam. you’re not going to find a horse’s head in your bed.

Houser’s biggest challenge has been “surviving in an environment in which powerful people want to put you out of business for their own political or economic capital,” he told the UK trade paper.

No wonder GTA ended up the way it did. Do you see a knife in every shadow, Sam? We bet you do.

Rockstar boss Sam Houser, in the 68th “rare interview” this year, has told MCV that he’s still got plenty to do, despite spearheading the most successful media launch of all time in GTA IV.

“What have I got left to achieve? Everything. We are only scratching at the surface of games’ potential as a creative medium,” he said.

The full chat’s in today’s MCV, which will be available for download tomorrow.

Please, stop. We cannae take any more. Speaking to 1up, Rockstar boss Sam Houser has admitted that the two versions of GTA IV do have visual differences.

“There’s a slight difference in the way they look,” he said. “I think that’s to do with really low-level technical stuff that I’m not the guy to explain. The 360 games have a certain look to them; PS3 games have a certain look to them. I like the way [the PS3] renders.” He concluded, “There’s a certain kind of softness without being blurry – some warmth to it – and then there’s a certain more clinical element to how the 360 looks.”

It’s out next week. Then we can start talking about the DLC and linking to walkthroughs.

Thanks, Evil Avatar.

It’s almost as is if anyone can now download the article for free, thus negating the magazine’s cover price and making a mockery of print in general. You can find the entire Edge GTA cover article here, all 16 pages of it. The length of the piece, incidentally, means Edge has written the most on the subject so far, trumping this ten-page playtest.

As if anyone ever doubted it, you have more words, Edge. Winner. The article’s supposed to be pretty good, to be honest, and includes an interview with Sam Houser, so it’s worth a read.

Blimey. According to this, Rockstar boss Sam Houser has made a very encouraging comment about the possibility of a GTA MMO in the latest edition on EGM.

Houser said the concept “is very, very doable and is a very, very compelling proposition.” In a subsequent question he described a mainstream subscription-based MMO on a console as “the Holy Grail.”

Apparently Houser seens the main problem as being how to fuse MMO ideals with GTA gameplay so as to avoid a city full of a few thousand people just shooting each other all the time. Doesn’t sound like we’re going to see anything like this anytime soon, then. We’ll just have to settle for APB in the meantime.

A few angry posts popped up yesterday regarding some crash-heavy bugs in the Bully: Scholarship Edition for Xbox 360, but a dribble turned into a flood overnight, it would seem. Rockstar made a statement on the issue, to be found here.

We have just become aware of the issues people are having with Bully Scholarship Edition on Xbox 360. It appears that some older 360s are experiencing framerate issues, freezes and other problems. You have our word that we never experienced any of this in QA – in any of our offices or at Microsoft. I am horrified, and we are now working around the clock to rectify this situation. Thanks to Neo-Gaf for bringing this matter to our attention. We love our games and put a huge amount of energy and care into making them all that they can be. We would never shove anything out the door – we never have and never will. We apologise to everyone affected for the inconvenience.

Respectfully,

Sam Houser

Internet placation at it’s best, there. Hopefully this is a storm in a teacup.

According to this AP report about positive trading on Take-Two’s stock today, “the company’s contract with Sam and Dan Houser, the heads of its Rockstar Games studio, expires in early 2008, and has yet to be renewed.”

The news will certainly raise eyebrows considering the proximity to the launch of GTA IV, now confirmed for release on April 29. The Houser’s are the notorious drivers of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, renowned by those in the know for keeping a very tight hold on Rockstar’s reins and being fiercely protective of the brand and its properties. And their mother was in Get Carter. They told us so 10 years ago.

Maybe the big men are looking for a change? Sam and Dan were original Rockstar founders in 1998, along with Terry Donovan and Jamie King. Back then the Housers were touting the top-down GTA2 (we interviewed them at E3 that year) and everything was very bed-of-roses compared to the megalithic creation we see today in the 3D GTA. Is enough enough, chaps?

Don’t expect official comment any time soon.