Dan Houser, co-founder of Rockstar Games and a pivotal figure in the Grand Theft Auto franchise, has revealed his deliberate strategy of avoiding GTA 6 and other open-world games. Houser, who left Rockstar in 2020 to found Absurd Ventures, told Variety that he has not watched the "Extended Look" trailer for GTA 6 and has no intention of doing so. His reasoning centers on protecting his creative process.
"I try to avoid consuming things that are going to disrupt me creatively," Houser explained. "And given that I spend a large amount of time trying to make open-world games, and the rest of my conscious time trying to figure out innovative ways to market them, I don’t need to see what other people are [doing]. I’m always trying to think about new ways of doing it, not sit there in some kind of comparison of what I would have done differently.”
This avoidance extends to his personal gaming habits. Houser stated that he no longer plays many open-world games. He finds that actively deconstructing a game's strengths and weaknesses in real-time is distracting, leading him to analyze development teams rather than enjoy the experience. "I’m not a game designer; I’m a sort of creative director," he noted. "So I’m trying to always find new things that haven’t been done before, or that I can steal from older media, quite frankly or just inspired me or things I always thought about.”
While Houser himself avoids direct consumption of competitor content, Absurd Ventures employs a team dedicated to examining the work of others. This mirrors his past practices, such as abstaining from Western films during Red Dead Redemption's development and avoiding the influential mob drama The Sopranos while working on the early GTA titles. "So I really try and avoid things that I think are going to overly influence me," he said.
Houser is currently engaged in several projects at Absurd Ventures, including a comedy open-world game slated for further reveal in the coming months, and a dystopian sci-fi game centered on a sentient AI that corrupts video game development. He expressed that while being forever linked to GTA is a significant honor, he hopes his new ventures will achieve their own success.
GTA 6 is scheduled for release on November 19 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. Meanwhile, Rockstar Games recently shared insights into the development process of a game on the scale of GTA 6.