Dan Houser, the co-founder and former creative leader of Rockstar Games, has deliberately avoided watching the Grand Theft Auto 6 gameplay reveal. He says seeing other open-world games can interfere with the ideas he is developing for his own projects.
Houser helped write and produce every Grand Theft Auto game, as well as Red Dead Redemption 2. He was Rockstar’s president of creative when he left the company in 2020. His brother, Sam Houser, remains in charge of the studio.
In a new podcast interview with Variety, Houser said he still has no idea what appeared in the GTA 6 gameplay presentation that premiered on Netflix in August.
“I haven’t seen it yet,” Houser said. He intends to keep it that way because material from other creators can “distract” or “disrupt” his creative process. Rather than compare another game’s decisions with what he might have done, he prefers to concentrate on finding fresh ways to build and market open-world experiences.
That approach extends to how he plays games. Houser explained that he finds it difficult to enjoy open-world titles without analysing how they were made, from the strengths and weaknesses of individual teams to the meetings that may have produced particular features.
“I’m always trying to find new things that haven’t been done before,” Houser said, adding that he also draws inspiration from older forms of media and ideas that have stayed with him.
Houser said he is a creative director rather than a game designer, and he does not need to understand every project being developed elsewhere. Fortunately, colleagues at his current company, Absurd Ventures, play new open-world releases and help keep him informed.
He has used similar creative isolation before. While working on Red Dead Redemption, Houser avoided watching other Westerns. He also did not watch The Sopranos until after leaving Rockstar, apart from seeing its finale live with his girlfriend, now his wife. He later watched the complete series during COVID and felt that discovering it earlier might have influenced his work on GTA too strongly.
What Dan Houser is making next
Houser founded Absurd Ventures in 2023. The company has released audio dramas, comic books and novels, while also developing two video games connected to its multimedia franchises.
The first is an open-world comedy focused on comedy and character memory. Houser said more information is expected in the next few months.
The second project is a dystopian science-fiction story about a video game in development that goes badly wrong. It features a rogue artificial intelligence that has gained sentience, but the AI was created by two developers who disliked each other, leaving it with a deep dislike of itself.
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