GTA 5: game development is not about how much money they make, stresses Houser

By Dave Cook

Grand Theft Auto 5 is going to make a lot of money. That much is clear already, but Rockstar’s Dan Houser has stressed that game development is about pushing artistic and technical boundaries, not counting your cash all the way to the bank.

Speaking with Polygon, Houser was asked if – in this day and age – he felt the Grand Theft Auto brand was still relevant. He replied, “I hope so. We, as a company, have tried not to get involved in that sort of discussion. You know, it’s not a sport, we’re not involved in competition with people that way. We’re trying to make something that is hopefully very enjoyable and that some people find amazing and incredible and really love, that we can hopefully make the people that invested in us some money back.

“The rest has always been something we’ve tried to shy away from, and always our challenges as we perceive them are creative. We’re trying to push video games forward to the best of our limited ability. We’re not trying to do anything more or less than that.

“The merits or demerits of games should be about creative strengths and weaknesses, and areas where they need to evolve, or areas where they’re already doing amazing stuff, or things that they supposedly can’t do, not about how much money they can make. That sort of Hollywood way of looking at things is never really been something that we at Rockstar have engaged in.”

To be fair, the company usually releases one new game a year, rather than flood the market with cash-grab nonsense. But that said, what do you think?

Don’t forget to check out all the GTA 5 reviews by the way.

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