Moz La Punk
Member
Both websites Gamer.nl and InsideGamer also have interviews with Dan Houser from Rockstar.
Im not going to completely translate the Dutch interviews from Gamer.nl and InsideGamer.nl but I've received these direct quotes from the interviewer (Simon Zijlemans) himself:
Dan Houser about using three playable characters in GTAV:
Link: http://www.insidegamer.nl/artikel/101648/gta-5-insidegamer-interviewt-dan-houser-van-rockstar-games
IG: I can imagine the meeting you have, the discussions about where you're going to take the game. And then...
Dan Houser: We dont really have those. Its all a few emails, its quite weird.
IG: But the moment someone says, 'Let's do multiple characters'?
Dan doubtfully glances at his colleague
DH: Was that an email? Someone discussed it and send around a couple of emails that was probably my brother [Sam Houser, -ed], myself, Aron and Leslie: What do you think? We have to do something different. What about this? And someone just went: Yeah, why not. And no one went: No, lets not. Everyone was like: Alright, lets go for it. Weve always worked We dont have a lot of meetings, partially because some of us are in New York and most of us are in Schotland.
Then the designers were originally doing missions for characters as in: he would do a mission, then another character would do a mission. You know, three for him, two for him, five for him etc. It seemed like it might be interesting and the designers were beginning to do that, and they suddenly came up with this idea: why dont we just have more than one character on a mission. In the begin it was like this: we just want to go on a mission together. So Im the star of the mission and when its my mission, youre just the NPC. Then someone said: yeah, but why cant I be him in this bit?
Because he could be doing something more fun, while youre doing boring stuff. That was when the switching on-mission came on. And then we had this feature suddenly, we felt was good a storytelling device, good as an off-mission device and good as an on-mission device. We thought it was brilliant, like it was a really great feature. That was sort of up and running. But only very recently we got it working, that was the concept, and it sort of worked really janky. And now it looks good in the game.
Dan Houser about GTA in a city outside of the USA:
IG: Would a GTA in, let's say Europe or Amsterdam, would it work?
Dan Houser: I dont know. I thought about it. A lot. Argued it every which way. I think, my own sense, speaking for myself and not for the company, is that its as much a product Americana Thats such a big part of the game. You know, you could make a great game set in Amsterdam. Would it be GTA? I dont know. We havent done it, so I cant really offer a comment or an opinion on it. Weve avoided it because we think that part of the experience of GTA is its engagement with America, or American media, American movies, American culture or whatever. Some kind of Americana is such a part of the games, that in removing that, it would bizarrely make them lose their universality.
Finally, Houser told Gamer.nl how Rockstar keeps GTA relevant. The studio doesn't think of GTA as a series, more as seperate games that happen to share
similar mechanics. Link: http://www.gamer.nl/interview/403013/interview-met-dan-houser-van-rockstar-games
Im not going to completely translate the Dutch interviews from Gamer.nl and InsideGamer.nl but I've received these direct quotes from the interviewer (Simon Zijlemans) himself:
Dan Houser about using three playable characters in GTAV:
Link: http://www.insidegamer.nl/artikel/101648/gta-5-insidegamer-interviewt-dan-houser-van-rockstar-games
IG: I can imagine the meeting you have, the discussions about where you're going to take the game. And then...
Dan Houser: We dont really have those. Its all a few emails, its quite weird.
IG: But the moment someone says, 'Let's do multiple characters'?
Dan doubtfully glances at his colleague
DH: Was that an email? Someone discussed it and send around a couple of emails that was probably my brother [Sam Houser, -ed], myself, Aron and Leslie: What do you think? We have to do something different. What about this? And someone just went: Yeah, why not. And no one went: No, lets not. Everyone was like: Alright, lets go for it. Weve always worked We dont have a lot of meetings, partially because some of us are in New York and most of us are in Schotland.
Then the designers were originally doing missions for characters as in: he would do a mission, then another character would do a mission. You know, three for him, two for him, five for him etc. It seemed like it might be interesting and the designers were beginning to do that, and they suddenly came up with this idea: why dont we just have more than one character on a mission. In the begin it was like this: we just want to go on a mission together. So Im the star of the mission and when its my mission, youre just the NPC. Then someone said: yeah, but why cant I be him in this bit?
Because he could be doing something more fun, while youre doing boring stuff. That was when the switching on-mission came on. And then we had this feature suddenly, we felt was good a storytelling device, good as an off-mission device and good as an on-mission device. We thought it was brilliant, like it was a really great feature. That was sort of up and running. But only very recently we got it working, that was the concept, and it sort of worked really janky. And now it looks good in the game.
Dan Houser about GTA in a city outside of the USA:
IG: Would a GTA in, let's say Europe or Amsterdam, would it work?
Dan Houser: I dont know. I thought about it. A lot. Argued it every which way. I think, my own sense, speaking for myself and not for the company, is that its as much a product Americana Thats such a big part of the game. You know, you could make a great game set in Amsterdam. Would it be GTA? I dont know. We havent done it, so I cant really offer a comment or an opinion on it. Weve avoided it because we think that part of the experience of GTA is its engagement with America, or American media, American movies, American culture or whatever. Some kind of Americana is such a part of the games, that in removing that, it would bizarrely make them lose their universality.
Finally, Houser told Gamer.nl how Rockstar keeps GTA relevant. The studio doesn't think of GTA as a series, more as seperate games that happen to share
similar mechanics. Link: http://www.gamer.nl/interview/403013/interview-met-dan-houser-van-rockstar-games
