Dan Houser talks GTA V

Rockstar founder Dan Houser has publicly talked about the next iteration in the GTA series for the first time.

However, the exec has told The Times that he hasn’t even thought of a City to set the game in yet – let alone a plot.

In a fantastic interview, Houser also talks to the paper’s Nigel Kendall about controversy over violent projects, the lack of recognition given to the industry, his reluctance to talk to the media – and the status of video games as ‘the new rock’n’roll’.

Talking about the release of Manhunt 2, Houser said that the controversial content of the game actually came back to bite Rockstar, as when a game is banned it means we’re not doing our first job – of making the investors back their money".

However, his opinion of the ‘games cause violence’ argument was less charitable.

He added: 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.

Nevertheless, we do get frustrated when video games are singled out and movies are given a free pass. Manhunt 2 was banned in the same week that Saw was released. The arguments become quite ludicrous quite quickly when people argue that games are somehow more dangerous than full-motion video.

Within Rockstar, sometimes we feel that some of our games get singled out and held up as pariahs. All we want to do is tell a story with rounded characters. Like Goodfellas, which is a key film for us, our rounded characters happen to be criminals.”

The paper reports that Houser will soon start work on GTA V, which will involve co-writing a script of around 1,000 pages – ten times as much as a feature film.

We’ll think of a city first, then the characters,” he added.