Dan Houser, co-founder of Rockstar (GTA, Red Dead Redemption), abandons his company

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Dan Houser, co-founder of the ehealth game studio Rockstar Games, will leave the latter next month. He was in charge of the franchises GTA and Red Dead Redemption, among the most profitable cultural products in history.

After 22 years of loyal service, Dan Houser will leave Rockstar Games in March. He will leave behind the firm he founded with his brother Sam in 1998. This departure was announced on the occasion of the company's annual financial statement. It is not only the vice-president of a ehealth game company who decides to move away, but one of the authors behind some of the most profitable cultural products of the decade 2010, such as GTA V or Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2. Creative director, author and executive producer of the company's games, he left his leg there, notably with a satirical look at American society.

The man who was worth billions

Dan Houser did not create the franchise GTA, but it's just like. After acquiring the rights to the then anecdotal series in the late 1990s, he oversaw the development of a third component. When it was released in 2001, GTA III revolutionizes open worlds in 3D and creates a genre, simply called GTA-like. More than a revolution of gameplay, the game also shakes up the media with its staging inspired by gangster films. The suites will follow the same path until the commercial consecration in 2013 of GTA V, the best-selling cultural product of all time. With over 115 million copies sold and more than $ 6 billion collected, it far surpasses the greatest success of cinema, Avengers: Endgame, which collected for its part “only” 2.9 billion greenbacks.

GTA is not the only feat of arms of Houser, because he is also behind titles like bully, Max Payne 3 or both Red Dead Redemption, true western epics. The second part, released in late 2018, was also a huge success with more than 26 million copies sold.

A controversy and a break

The exit of Red Dead Redemption 2 has also placed the company Rockstar and Dan Houser at the center of a controversy concerning the principle of "crunch". This practice, common in the ehealth game industry, consists of making employees work hard during the last weeks of development, regardless of their health and their working time. Shortly before the game is released, Houser boasted of having his teams swarm more than 100 hours a week, sparking outrage from the gaming world and beyond. After leaving Red dead 2, Houser had decided to step back. Officially on a break since spring 2019, he will therefore definitively leave his duties next month.

The departure of Houser obviously does not mean the end of the Rockstar franchises. Rumors about GTA 6 continue to browse the web and it would be amazing not to see the studio announce it soon. A new GTA which would be done without Dan Houser, therefore. In these conditions, will he keep the very particular leg of the games signed Houser, the chiselled writing of the Rockstar epics being one of the determining factors of their success? To be continued…

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