Even the developers who built the original Grand Theft Auto nearly thirty years ago cannot play the upcoming sequel ahead of its release.
“We’re all waiting to see what they’ve done,” Dave Jones, co-creator of the franchise, said in an interview with the BBC alongside Brian Baglow, who worked as a writer and publicist on the original title.
Baglow confirmed he is waiting like everyone else, noting he has the pre-order secured.
Roots in Dundee
The franchise traces back to 1997 in Dundee, Scotland, where a small team at DMA Design developed the first top-down crime game after toying with a racing concept initially titled “Race’n’Chase.”
“It was entirely the work of a Scottish team, all novices, we had no games design degrees at that point,” Baglow said of the initial project.
“The only people who believed in it were DMA Design. The publisher wanted to kill it,” he added.
Jones explained that the team wanted to offer something distinct from existing games by letting players step out of vehicles.
The developers initially considered letting players choose between acting as a criminal or a police officer, but quickly dropped the second option.
“At some point we just said, you know what, it’s way more fun playing the bad guy, so that’s what the game was about,” Jones said.
While the first title was a slow burner in sales compared to the studio’s earlier puzzle game Lemmings, word of mouth drove steady sales throughout its release year.
Rockstar North Grew Under Strauss Zelnick's Leadership
DMA Design was renamed Rockstar North in 2002 and relocated to Edinburgh, where it now employs more than 1,000 people.
Parent company Take-Two Interactive is led by Chief Executive Strauss Zelnick, who took control of the firm in March 2007 alongside an investor group, watching shares soar 12-fold since.
Zelnick, a Harvard University business and law school graduate, previously worked his way up to become president of 20th Century Fox by his early 30s before moving into the interactive entertainment sector.
Under his leadership, Take-Two has expanded through both in-house development and major acquisitions, such as the $12.7-billion deal for mobile-game maker Zynga Inc.
Zelnick said that the Grand Theft Auto franchise is arguably the most valuable intellectual property in the entertainment sector due to its vast global reach.
“We believe that the Grand Theft Auto franchise as a whole is probably the most valuable intellectual property in the entertainment business of any type because of its enormous reach to consumers worldwide,” Zelnick said.
Describing the appeal of the titles, Zelnick explained that the games are popular because they are approachable for casual players while remaining exceptionally difficult to master.
Zelnick also dismissed criticism that the series encourages real-world violence, pointing out that questions about whether entertainment content influences behavior have accompanied every entertainment business he has been involved with.
The previous entry in the series, Grand Theft Auto V, launched in 2013 and generated $1bn (£760m) in just three days, and the last edition of the game sold nearly 235 million copies.
The upcoming Grand Theft Auto VI is scheduled for release on November 19 by Rockstar Games, arriving as anticipation builds for one of the most anticipated entertainment launches in history.
Earlier coverage: GTA VI Presales Far in Excess of Expectations, Says Take-Two CEO
