Rockstar: GTA IV will send tabloids mad

Founder of Rockstar Games Dan Houser has admitted that the company expects an OTT reaction by the tabloid press when GTA IV is released in April.

Speaking after a demonstration of the game to North American press, Houser asserted that GTA and other violent titles were a convenient enemy” for the mainstream media.

When asked if he thought there would be an angry reaction to GTA IV in some quarters of the press, Houser replied.

"I expect it because we’ve had so much of it in the past," said Houser. "I wish people would treat video games the same as other media. They seem to not want to do that for reasons that I don’t understand. It’s a convenient enemy for people."

The Canadian Press also reports that Houser distanced GTA IV from the more ‘cartoony’ elements of previous games in the series.

"If the graphics are slightly cartoony, we make sure the writing is slightly cartoony to match that," he commented. "Obviously, the graphics have gone closer to realism, so we wanted everything else to be closer to realism as well."