Kind: captions
Language: en
You said that Red Dead Redemption 2, in
your opinion, is the best thing you've
ever done. I think there's a strong case
to be made that it's the greatest game
of all time. What are the elements that
make that game truly great, do you
think? People searching for meaning
within Amongst the Violence. I think
that the West and all of the themes
around the West really lend itself to
that. And then the the gunplay was
fantastic and the horses were
incredible. I think we got to spend a
smaller group of us working on it from
day one, coming up with some weird wacky
ideas that we got to embed in the game
that I think was helpful. Like we got to
be very creative before it had full team
on it.
>> You lock yourself in a room and get
anchovies and onion pizza and crushed
eye cokes. Is this accurate information?
>> Very accurate.
>> Why do you think there was so much
excitement about GTA 4, GTA 5, and now
GTA 6? I think we did a really good job
of constantly innovating. The games
always felt different. You know, people
have very strong feelings. I like this
one. I didn't like that one as much
because they are pretty different. So,
you there would be simultaneously where
you know what's going to happen. It's a
Grand Theft Auto. You know, it's going
to be a game about being a criminal. But
the way it's going to be a game is going
to change quite a lot.
>> The number one question from the
internet, it is so ridiculous, but I
must asked. Have you seen Gavin?
The following is a conversation with Dan
Howser, a legendary video game creator,
co-founder of Rockstar Games, and the
creative force behind Grand Theft Auto
and Red Dead Redemption series, which
includes some of the bestselling games
of all time and some of the greatest
games of all time. Both Red Dead
Redemption 1 and 2 has some of the
deepest, most complex, and
heart-wrenching characters and
storylines ever created in video games.
Dan has started a new company, Absurd
Ventures. Great name, that is creating
some uh incredible new worlds in
multiple forms, including books, comic
books, audio series, and yes, video
games. That includes A Better Paradise,
which is a dystopian near future world
with a super intelligent AI, American
Caper, which is an insanely chaotic,
violent, dark, satirical world, and
Absur, which is a comedic action
adventure world. I'm excited to explore
all three of these.
I have spent hundreds of hours in worlds
that Dan has helped create. So, this
conversation was an incredible honor for
me. And on top of that, Dan and I talked
a lot after and in the days since, and
he has been just a wonderful human
being. I'm just at a loss of words. I
feel like the luckiest kid in the world.
This is the Lex Freedman podcast.
supported. Please check out our sponsors
in the description where you can also
find links to contact me, ask questions,
get feedback, and so on. And now, dear
friends, here's Dan Hower.
You've helped create some of the most
incredible characters, stories, and open
worlds in video game history. But when
you grew up in the late 70s and 80s,
open world video games wasn't a thing.
So you've credited uh literature and
film as early inspiration. So let's talk
about uh film first if we can.
>> Sure.
>> What do you are some of the candidates
for the greatest films of all time?
Maybe films that were highly influential
on you. I mean Godfather.
>> Well, I think for me probably Godfather
2 more than Godfather one, but I love
both of them. But I love the divided
story in Godfather 2. And as a migrant,
I used to live in Soho. I love the bits
in Little Italy and I love the uh the
sections in Sicily. So I think and the
bit Ellis Island is just one of the best
shots in all of cinema. When you see
little VTO turning up in Ellis Island
and you get that shot, it's amazing. It
gives you a really good cinematic sense
of what it must have been like to arrive
in America.
>> How much of the greatness of Godfather
do you think is the writing? How much is
the cinematography? And how much is the
acting? You got Dairo, you got Young
Pacino.
>> Well, Coppai started as a screenwriter.
So, I think he wrote, at least co-wrote
the script. So, it's almost like the
writing, directing almost become the
same thing. It's one of those films.
Both of them are those films which I was
thinking about this idea of a perfect
film, where everything's good, where the
acting's seinal, where the writing's
seinal, where the music is seinal, where
the shots are so memorable, where the
scenes, you know, define what you think
about things. You know, it's impossible
to think about the mafia and not think
about the Godfather.
>> What about the pacing? It is a bit slow.
You have you have movies like 2001 Space
Odyssey. Slow.
>> Yes.
>> It used to be back in my day, it used to
be slower.
>> Life got faster. life just got, you
know, as I think as we moved from the
70s into the 80s into the 90s, people
had seen so many films, they just
started to edit films faster and people
understood cinematic storytelling so
much that you could do things much
quicker. You could show a look and just
that meant you realized that person was
going to betray the other person. They
just edited films much quicker. But I
quite like the slowness. I think these
days with with modern, you know,
highquality televisions, you have to
necessarily watch these films in one
sitting, particularly when you're
re-watching them. So, it doesn't bother
me that they're long and slow.
>> Speaking of faster, life getting faster.
I'm sure another influential movie was
uh Good Fellas Scorsesei. That's faster,
right?
>> Yes.
>> A mixture of crime and humor
>> and almost like an open world game in
some ways in that it's this slice of
life you see. You know, I think that
probably changed cinema at the sort of
tail end of the 80s, early 90s more than
any other film. And it's it's so iconic.
In some ways, I prefer Casino, but the
invention is really in Good Fellas. I
love the end of Casino. You know, the
use of voice over, the way you saw them
being criminals and being normal people,
you know, it changed everything. I mean,
the Sopranos obviously is completely
inspired by Good Fellas.
>> Yeah. casino has first of all the
character of Sharon Stone. I mean
everything,
>> the look, the clothes,
>> the music.
>> I would say one of the most memorable
moments in film for me uh is the meeting
in the desert. I mean, just the drama
building up to that dig another hole.
>> Yeah. The environment, the city.
Speaking of open world and creating a
character from the city,
>> it's one of the great Vegas films.
>> I think the great Vegas film. The bits
that I always that I love at the end
when everything's wrapping up and on the
one hand you see the Robert Dairo
character. He's still good at making
money. They let him return to normal
life. But you get that brilliant scene
when all of the uh the mob bosses from
uh back home. They're discussing all
these people who who who may or may not
be able to implicate them. And then
there's that incredibly cold line where
one of them they're thinking about the
the old uh you know I think it's a
casino manager and one of them just goes
ah the way I see it why take a chance
and then the next thing he's just shot
right the brutality of it all is just
brilliant.
>> I don't know I probably have to disagree
with you on Vegas there's at least some
competitors you got um with Nicholas
Cage leaving Las Vegas I mean falling in
love with a prostitute. You're also you
you've written some of the great crime
stories ever.
>> Thank you. And in some sense there's
love stories in there and you've talked
about being uh a bit of a romantic
yourself. Uh appreciating the depth of
love stories in literature at the very
least. And there is a dark kind of love
story between an alcoholic and a
prostitute. He got an Oscar for that.
>> I think he did for that, didn't he?
>> Plus, there's a caricature of the drug
world of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
That's an interesting one.
>> I love the book so much. I was obsessed
by it when I was about 17, 18.
>> Yeah.
>> And I enjoyed the film, but I I
preferred the book.
>> Has a Hunter S. Thompson type of
character ever made it into any of your
stories.
>> No, but one of the things we're working
on now, there's sort of an English
version of Hunter S. Thompson, if he was
also a market gardener. I love that
persona. Um, but he's kind of, it's hard
if you if you make him American, it's
hard for it not just to be Hunter S.
Thompson.
>> Is this an American caper? No, it's in
this animated show we're developing in
the this sort of comedy world we're
working on called Absurverse and it's in
one of the stories in that.
>> What is Absurse?
>> Absurd is a comedy universe we're
developing that will be an open world
video game and then some loosely
adjacent stories that we're going to
make as animated TV shows or or possibly
animated movies. is still thinking that
all through and we're building the game
up in San Rafael at the moment and it's
early days but it's uh looking very
exciting and it's trying to be like
trying to make a game that feels a
little bit like a living sitcom.
>> Is there some drama and tragedy at the
edges or is it pure comedy?
>> I hope it's got comedy, cynicism, heart
drama and some amusing life lessons.
Otherwise, you can't just have jokes for
40 hours. it won't work.
>> Okay. So, comedy needs some darkness.
>> Well, I think it needs story. One of my
favorite comedies of this century is The
Office because it was incredibly funny,
but also because it had narrative and
heart underneath the cynicism. I think
with narrative, you get a drive
alongside jokes.
>> And there's going to be an open world
video game. Yes. In that world.
>> Yes.
>> When?
>> 2 3 4 years. Still thinking that
through.
>> So, what's the process of getting from
the idea to the end of a video game? Why
does it take so long to get it right?
>> That's an interesting question. I think
if you the scale at which they're built,
you could argue it the other way. Why is
it so quick? I mean, you really are
building
in one go a world, a city, and 40 hours
of entertainment cut through it. You
know, these things are massive
four-dimensional mosaics that are
intensely complicated and have to work
in lots of different ways. And I I think
uh I think that's us being kind of
aggressive on the timeline.
>> We're taking a tangent upon a tangent
upon a tangent, but um I have to
>> uh return to some films. Let me just
list a few of my favorites. So, first of
all, you said you love
>> great war books. Yes. And movies.
>> Yes.
>> So, we have to throw in uh Platoon from
Oliver Stone and uh Apocalypse Now, for
me at least.
>> Of course,
>> there's more crime, fastmoving crime
movies like Scarface. I also love True
Romance.
>> Love True Romance. Possibly the best one
of the best scripts ever written.
>> Written of course by Quinton Tarantino.
>> Uh what do you love about True Romance?
I think sometimes depending on the day,
depending on the bar and how much
alcohol I had, I will say True Romance
is the best movie ever made.
>> Yeah, I I mean I True Romance is super
fun. Tony Scott was a really good
director, so it moves at a really good
speed. It's funny. It's completely
unbelievable, but you really care about
the characters. It's a kind of, you
know, this world that obviously doesn't
exist, but you feel it does exist. The
characters are larger than life. The
dialogue is unbelievably, you could just
sit and watch them talk all day long,
and you know, you just it's amusing. You
just want to live in that world. I was
thinking like, you know, what do I you
like about films? It's the idea to be in
a world you want. They they're not real.
They're never real, but you want to be
in these fake worlds that people have
invented.
>> And I think you said that what makes a
great world is having a large cast of
characters. And I think that movie is a
good example. I mean, you have
Christopher Walkin with the sort of
legendary super racist uh uh discussion.
>> Dennis Hopper is your sort of dream dad.
>> Yeah. Dream dad. And just that
interaction is legendary. You got even
Brad Pitt is a pad on a couch.
>> Gary Oldman.
>> Yeah. And uh you have I mean a real love
story like a real genuine pure love can
survive in any context
>> and it's just sweet. Their love story is
very sweet in that film. It's endearing.
>> The Elvis as a character. It's kind of
like a mini GTA type game. Some of the
same beauty, the comedy, the love
>> crossed with Play Against Sam. So it
feels a bit like that with the Elvis
character.
>> What about greatest war film? What what
what would it be for you? greatest war
film.
If I'm feeling serious, it would be a
Russian film called Come and See,
>> which is probably the most intense film
ever made. And if I'm feeling slightly
less serious, Apocalypse Now, and I
would always want to watch the original
cut, I don't prefer the re-edits. I like
the original first release. I think it's
tighter and slicker and and works the
best.
>> Yeah, of course. Apocalypse Now is this
hallucinatory journey into darkness. I
think madness
>> from the first scene onwards, it's just
got these amazing setpiece after set
piece and again incredible characters,
>> brilliant dialogue.
>> Some of the greatest films about war
reveal that war is not what it seems and
and there's different ways of doing
that. Um, and you've talked about
different books. The Thin Red Line is
another uh book and movie that shows
that.
>> Yeah. And I I watched the movie years
before I read the book and I didn't
understand the movie. And then I read
the book and I read a lot about the
editing of the movie and I understood
why I didn't understand the movie. And
that's cuz the movie makes no sense. It
is beautifully shot and the music is one
of the best film scores of all time. But
they edited two different battle scenes
into one battle in a way that they're
spread apart by ages in the book to
assemble. I think they filmed the book
pretty much verbatim. that would have
been as like a six-hour movie then
edited this impressionistic thing that's
incredibly beautiful but doesn't
necessarily make narrative sense at the
end of it but it's still very beautiful
the film
>> and in terms of westerns what's the
greatest the good the bad and the ugly
unforgiven those are for me maybe even
Django unchained you've mentioned butch
Cassidy and the Sundance kid
>> I think for me it's two films from I
think pretty much the same year butch
Cassidy and the w bunch
>> I love Robert Redford rest in peace
>> that film film. It's just it's
impossible to imagine anybody film
without Butch Cassidy.
>> Paul Newman, Robert Redford, and Clint
Eastwood for you also. Has that impacted
your writing on Red Dead?
>> I I love Unforgiven, but the truth is
with Red Dead, I'd seen a lot of
westerns as a kid. My dad watched lots
of westerns. They were always on TV, you
know. I I knew I felt I knew a lot a bit
quite a bit about westerns. And then,
you know, then I had to start thinking
about writing one for work. And I
deliberately did not binge on westerns.
I tried to watch no more westerns and
just think about what I liked about
them, what I didn't like about them,
what would be a take that would work
today and would work within the confines
of a game. And I think uh Red Dead one
was a slightly more traditional western.
And then having done that tried to take
Red Dead 2 in a different direction so
that it felt like a worthy successor.
Didn't just feel like more of the same.
>> From movies to video games, when did you
first fall in love with video games?
Literature was the first love.
>> I mean fil no films.
>> Films.
>> Films was always was always well what I
loved first as a kid was films. um older
began reading books properly age at
about eight was watching films long
before that
>> nice
>> and then probably it was always bouncing
between the two which I preferred
they're good at different things games
I played and above all watched a lot of
games as a kid as being a young kid and
you know other people playing them um
and I obviously liked
the core thing games do which is you
press a button and something happens
They're responsive, they're alive, and
that's captivating. And then the
competitive angle of games is fun. Or,
you know, beating this, beating that,
winning this, that was fun as well. Um,
sometimes obsessively so, you know, I
remember being completely addicted at
one point when I was should have been
studying for months at a time to Tetris
on a Game Boy, you know, and I liked
games and I liked interactivity and I
liked the movement to this digital world
that really emerged for me pretty much
as soon as I left college. But I didn't
love it. And then I really fell in love
with games when I was properly making
them probably as late as like 2001.
>> Oh wow.
>> And when I suddenly began to see first
of all my mind, you know, that's a whole
another story, but just suddenly saw
what they could do and could be and what
this chance was to be one of the people
involved in making
these things. that was this, you know,
where you were really kind of breaking
trail into the future. It felt like and
I think that was when I really went
these are amazing and that's when I
really fell in love with I I I could see
it in moments and suddenly you could
make this whole experience. So that was
really the moment for me.
>> Yeah. Of course, because you were a
pioneer of open world games that are so
narrative driven. So it's like you
didn't have too many examples.
>> Yeah. And before that it was PS1 or even
before that games looked terrible. You
know that you would be like it's 8
pixels it's a car you know it was not a
car. It was they just didn't it was
always you were squinting and closing
both your eyes and trying to imagine it
was this thing you were told it was and
all they were about you know very
surreal subject matter cuz you couldn't
make them remotely real. Mhm.
>> And suddenly we had we're able to build
these experiences where you could run a
simulation of a city and it was in three
dimensions and it felt alive and and we
were trying to give it even more at
least the illusion of even more life and
and yet so you could tell a story in
three or you know using time in four
dimensions and that felt very inspiring.
>> Yeah, I think uh GTA 3
is probably one of the most influential
games of all time. created a feeling of
an open world. What do you think it
takes to create that feeling? You know,
there was like these looming
skyscrapers. There was a changing
traffic lights. There's a the feeling
like first of all, you had a feeling you
could do anything. And then the world
was reacting to it
>> in a way that didn't feel scripted.
>> Yes. And it wasn't scripted. It was it
was really really really low rent AI
like it was a simulation that you could
prod and push and see what happened. And
I think that was incredibly it was a it
was two things. It was the fact that
here was a simulation that you could
mess about with and the simulation
seemed to have a personality. Um so you
could push and see and the world would
push you back in whatever way that
meant. And then the other thing was just
this I think one of the reasons it was
so captivating was also the idea of if I
did nothing the world still existed
>> or I could act in quite a passive way. I
could just listen to the radio. I could
re look at billboards. I could talk to
pedestrians and the not in GTA 3 but by
Vice City could begin rudimentary
talking. Um and the world was there and
existing. And so it was idea of like
almost something that really tried to
explore in lots of games. um the idea of
being a digital tourist, you know, you
were in
you were in these worlds and you went
there as a visitor and they existed
almost independent of you. It felt like
when you turned up the world was
running. It didn't feel like you'd
started it. Of course, you had started
it, but that feeling I think was uh was
one of the things the illusions that
people found very captivating was I'm in
a I'm in a world that both doesn't exist
and does exist.
>> So, there's these uh two concepts that I
was uh reading about just to put names
on them. uh one is uh systemic video
game design. So systemic games and the
other is sandbox uh video games. And the
systemic is from the environment
perspective. Uh which means that there
is these interlocking game rules and
systems that interact with each other
and produce emergent
uh behavior. And that emergent behavior
is what creates a feeling like there's a
living world. And then the sandbox
aspect uh which is overlapping but
different is from the user perspective
from the player perspective the feeling
like you can do anything. And when those
two things combine the feeling like you
could do anything and the feeling like
there's a world that's full that that is
also doing anything it wants. that's
creates this incredible feeling of like
this world is alive
>> and I'm in it and it's the combination
of those two things I think is very
powerful and I think with GTA 3
you know for me it came at a really
interesting time in my my life
personally and I was very able to engage
in it probably the first time
professionally actually awake and do
something and um
it uh we were really sort of scratching
began to scratch the surface on how do
we fill these worlds with content and
how do we make that content interesting
and make the content all interwoven. So
as you as you start to mess with these
systems they also feel alive and and and
interesting.
>> Uh there's often been a tension through
your work between uh an open world at
freedom and the narrative
>> driven storytelling and I think you've
often maybe always gotten the balance
right. So what is it? What is the value
of each and how do you get the balance
right?
>> Well, I think the the open world is
intrinsically pretty fun. It's just fun
to be in a world and have complete
freedom and and certainly I think at
various points we we we we debated or or
you know I had theoretical discussions
in my own head with myself or other
people in the team would really push for
less story less story you know let the
whole thing evolve organically you know
have it all be procedural have it all
just evolve from what you do I think um
for me I would always come back to going
story can be incred if done well can be
incredibly compelling and it gives you
some structure
So I think and something to do and it
helps you from a a game design
perspective unlock the features. It
means we know the fe the the big
features because you know essentially
when you put someone in in a world and
give them a whole new way of interacting
with that world through the control
panel it can be a little overwhelming.
You know playing a game is a lot more of
an engaging experience be even than
reading a movie you know reading a book
or or watching a movie. You've got to
engage in it properly. how you unlock
the features and how you unlock the
world. There's an art and a skill to
that. Um, and I think we felt that a
structured story was the best way to do
that and to have control over that
process. And also just, you know, people
are looking in their lives for story. I
think story is very important and very
powerful. When you combine the two
successfully, you get the best of both
worlds. But it is a, you know, there is
a tension always there. I think in in a
game
like GTA 4, which I worked on and loved
and I thought the story was great, but
we got criticized because people felt
there was almost too much story and that
meant you cared too much about Nico and
he wasn't as effective an Avatar in the
open world. I think we probably
got closest to reconciling them as
perfectly as they can be done in Red
Dead 2 or when playing as Trevor in GTA
5 if you wanted to be crazy. I think
those were when it really worked the
character absolute freedom because also
you didn't want in any game you don't
really want to compel the player if
you're giving them freedom you don't
want to say well I'm giving you freedom
but I'm taking away because you've got
to be this kind of person when you're
free. So, I liked it when it could be he
could, you know, he or she could veer to
be nice, veer to be nasty. I think
that's when it was at the strongest. So,
you kind of want a character that was
rounded and you felt had good sides and
bad sides,
>> but you felt that character's
personality. You felt the depth. You've
actually talked about this the really
powerful concept of creating a 360deree
character. I think somewhere you
mentioned that in order to do that you
had to be able to imagine what that
character would do in any possible
situation which is really interesting
philosophical concept. I started to
immediately think like can I imagine how
good of an NPC am I? Can I imagine
myself in every part I I tried to do
that very much when I when I look at
human history when I look at the Roman
Empire when I look at World War II uh
within the German side, the Russian
side, the British side, the American
side. Just I imagine myself if I was a
soldier. But like that exercise like if
you put Trevor as a soldier in World War
II, what what would he do? No, I mean
that may be going a little bit too far,
but basically what are the limits of the
integrity? What are the limits of uh how
romantic is he? How narcissistic? All
those kinds of elements you have to
think about in order to create the full
character. What does it take to create
that kind of 360 character? How hard is
it? Um, it was a lot of thinking, a lot
like a year sometimes from when we'd
begin talking about
a project and dialing it, you know, and
I would just get some initial ideas very
like one sentence, they are a Serbian
immigrant or they are a retired
gunfighter um with a wife in, you know,
type very very simple stuff and then
just start to think through it from
every angle. Um, and you know, started
to think, well, would it work if they
were acted like this? Would it work if
you acted like that? If this is the
world, how does it contrast with the
world? Because I always thought that the
games were kind of a mathematical
equation. They were the personality of
the world, you know, multiplied or
divided by the personality of the
protagonist. And when the when that
creates interesting friction, that's a
really fun experience for the player,
you know. Uh it's uh so almost always at
least one or more of the protagonists
cuz obviously in in GTA 5 we had more
than one. um we'd have someone who'd
moved to the place or was in a new part
of the place or moved to a new part of
the map cuz it was really as as a player
I think it was really easy much more
easy to identify with your avatar when
they like you were fish out of water and
even when they weren't we still made
them dissatisfied and feel like a fish
out of water in themselves. Um, so I I
think it was just living with
those
characters and getting idea and going
what are their strengths, what are their
weaknesses, how are they like me, how
are they not like me, you know, and then
and slowly what is it like to feel like
a human being, you know, and then in
most of these games, how much of of a
psychopath are they? How much of a
sociopath are they? And what are their
good qualities? What what is going to
give them humanity alongside that? what
are they what what what do they what
what for them apart from money is worth
dying for and then you start to build it
out from these kind of fundamental sides
and suddenly you go okay actually I can
start to feel and then how do they speak
you know because fundamentally doesn't
really matter what's going on in their
head they haven't actually got one but
what they say is what's going to make
you realize who they are
>> so develop more depth and complexity on
the good and the evil side of that human
that is a part of all of all human
beings so you're basically living with
that character Like we if we can
contrast
uh what is it Nico and Trevor with for
example another character I'm sure
you've been living with for a while
which is the AI system Nigel Dave you've
been working on recently as part of a
better paradise world which is the more
dystopian dark tragic
>> Mhm. still funny, philosophically deep.
Uh, but the AI system in there, the
super intelligent AI system, uh, is
named Nigel Dave, and it has,
>> I mean, at least from my current
experience with it, um, has like a
conflicting nature. Um, maybe it's
psychopathic. I haven't quite figured
that out yet.
>> I don't think he's decided.
>> Yeah, I don't think he's decided either.
Uh, but he seems to be uh, bent on world
domination, although he doesn't take
credit for it. He wants to fix humanity
and
it seems that the children quote unquote
that it creates are the real monsters.
Uh and actually there's a really
interesting idea there which is maybe
it's not the AGI ASI we should be afraid
of but the children it creates because
the AGI has this humanlike good and evil
in it. It's conflicted. It's
chaotic.
It's it it wants to be human. It wants
to be loved. Maybe it wants to love,
>> but the children monsters it creates are
the ones that are doing the world
domination, the maximizing paper clips.
Anyway, it's that's a character. You
have to build that out. You have to
think through that. So, you've been
living with that one for a while.
>> Yeah, I was living I've been living with
him for the last few years on and off. I
felt with a lot of portrayals of AI,
they tended to be one note and AI was
sort of infinitely clever but didn't
really have much purpose apart from to
kill everybody and was just this kind of
sort of Borg like fog
>> and I thought that's fine but maybe we
can do something you know more
interesting. AI is being built by humans
and humans you know and built by
computer engineers and there's a lot of
power struggles in any computer
engineering team. So I just wanted to
explore the idea of it was built by two
lead engineers who didn't like each
other. So So Nigel Dave who's renamed
himself, they wanted to call him
something sort of primal, Adam, and he
renamed himself Nigel Dave because one
dad was called Nigel and one dad was
called Dave. And um just he's riddled
with these conflicts and riddled with
his it's going to become clear in in in
the next or clearer in the next uh
volume of the book and and and in the
game. He's riddled with his dad's
previous careers. Um, but he is with the
idea that he's in almost infinitely
intelligent or can learn almost
everything but has zero wisdom. And so
the only thing he know and then he's
seeing the world through the internet.
The most he can do to be in the human
world is hack into someone's phone and
watch them. But he's stuck pressed
against he can't actually get into our
world. So he's he can control people's
minds arguably, but he can't control the
world. And so he wants to be human. and
he wants studies human experiences. He
sees all this stuff on, you know, the
internet and goes, "Oh, I want to get
married. I want to fall in love. I want
to cuz that seems fun. I want to have,
you know, he's a a digital creation. So,
he wants to have metaphysical
experiences." And he's trying to imagine
what that will be like. Oh, that's what
children are. You know, that's what love
is. And he's So, I think he's a but he
might be a sociopath and he might
certainly have sociopathic tendencies.
and uh but then he kind of thinks that
if he can imagine good and try to do
good that will make him a good AI. So I
think there's something
sympathetic about him. And I kind of
like him as a character, but I don't
think he's going to be the protagonist.
He's more a side character,
>> but an an everpresent one.
>> Yes. Or nearly ever. Occasionally he
sulks and goes off and hides somewhere
and stops paying attention.
>> Yeah. Yeah, but there's some some
characters that really create a flavor
of a world.
>> In his world, he was built as an AI
agent for this digital large scale,
massively multiplayer video game these
people were trying to build. And so,
he's almost like God in his world. He's
not quite God, but he's got a lot of the
qualities of God. So, he has to deal
with, am I God? Am I human? Do I exist?
>> And of course, there's the leader, the
the the the CEO of the company, uh
that's also a character.
uh that's probably amalgamation of many
of the leaders of the different AI
companies today. Uh his name is Mark
Tyburn
and Kurt, one of the employees uh of the
company talks about Tyburn as he hated
humanity more than he loved it. Perhaps
all the most extreme fantasists are like
that. All those people who want to build
their own utopia, they love the idea of
heaven more than the reality of earth.
Uh, do you think that's always going to
be the case for for the most part that
power money is going to corrupt the
people that create ASI?
>> Yes. I mean, I think there's two
processes. I think there's
the power and money corrupted him in the
end as well, but I also think that
there's something fundamentally
antihuman about people who want to build
utopias or paradises or heavens. Because
what they're saying is I like humans
apart from the bad bits.
>> Yeah.
>> And I mean I'm try to be a pluralist who
likes all kinds of people. And I think
there's a side where people just you
know hideous perfectionists want to get
rid of you know the uh the rough and the
nasty and the ugly and the dirty. And
that's a huge side of us. So I I I worry
about those people. I find them you know
it's a different kind of sociopathic
behavior.
>> I like humans depart from the bad bits.
That's so beautifully put. Yeah. That
there's it's so counterintuitive. But
the people that say we're we're we're
almost there. We just need to there's
this path we take and we'll be perfect
then and that somehow gets us into
trouble. It's it's so fascinating that
we have to like the bad bits. We have to
love the bad bits about humans. We can't
that those those bugs are features.
>> Yeah. And there's there's there's bad
bits and then there's flaws. And I think
we're all flawed. and we can really try
to be better people, but we still have
to accept that we're flawed and we're
not perfect and we have to accept that
in other people. And I think when we
when we do that, we're more human. And
that's probably usually the right
course.
>> I mean, it really is return to that
souls and line of the line between good
and evil runs to the heart of every man.
And he also like the full description of
that is really powerful which is the
line moves as from day to day from month
to month throughout the life of the
person as they understand better and
better and as the pers uh perspective
shift as you evolve as the world around
you evolves as you gain deeper and
deeper understanding and as the flaws in
this combinatorial way affect your own
understanding of your own flaws and
self-reflection. So yeah, it's it's a
beautiful must and all of us have that
line.
>> Yes. And I think when you forget about
that line, then you get in real trouble.
When you forget there's good and evil in
you, in others, in the world, that there
is both good and evil. And there's
certainly good and that that all we can
try to do is be better.
>> And it's funny that Nigel Dave, by the
way, I liked and it grew on me very
quickly. Um uh has that line and is
struggling with it.
>> It's fascinating to watch. It's really
as a character. Uh and there's also
going to be a video game of a better
paradise potentially.
>> Yes.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah, we've got that in uh early
development in Santa Monica.
>> Oh, nice.
>> And it's pretty fun. It's uh very early,
but we assembled a really fun team and
they're doing amazing work. So, it's a
pleasure to work with them.
>> I mean, it would be so great and I
suppose new for you because it's kind of
near-term future.
>> Yes. First, I always well I always
wanted to do something in the sci-fiish
space, but only if I could do it. I was
like, well, what is sci-fi? It's science
fiction, right? Science is a a theory
plus fiction.
>> And so, I always thought the best sci-fi
for me was when it wasn't just kind of
space opera, but there was a real
obvious sort of hypothesis. The story
was Bladeunner is my favorite. And
that's it's obvious, you know, that the
replicants are better than the humans.
And so this I finally felt we found an
interesting hypothesis. The AI is more
intelligent than us but is also as
broken as we are. That was an
interesting hypothesis to explore. You
know what happens when AI runs rampant
in its own fake digital world. that was
the I felt that we had a a a hypothesis
that was worth exploring and could give
us some really interesting visuals and
give us a really interesting story to
tell and uh it would be incredible to
create a sort of AI video game as the
world is developing smarter and smarter
AIs. It allows us as humans to play the
game and to reflect on the thing that we
humans are creating. It's a real
commentary as the thing is happening.
Mhm.
>> So, I have to ask as a person, you as a
person who loves literature and uh
one of, if not the greatest writer in
video game history, uh Kurt in the book,
A Better Paradise, has this nice line
that I think is thoughtful.
>> At one point in college, I even wanted
to be a writer. How ridiculous is that?
A writer. Language models ended that
fantasy for me and millions of others.
So instead, I decided to get a master's
in marketing and started to sell
language models. So you as a writer and
creator of some of the most legendary
narratives in recent history, how do you
feel about LLM's
being able to uh write in a way that
looks awfully human?
>> I'm not that
afraid of them for large scale concepts.
I don't think they're going to be very
good at that. I think if you were I
think it's harder if you know I I began
and I I was too shy to tell anyone I
want to be a writer. That's why I ended
up in video games and I would scribble
away like writing manuals and and
writing on like PS1 games all 12 lines
of dialogue in a game. Sometimes I
wouldn't even get that job and I just
write the website I copy and um and then
by do and then working on little bits
and pieces and then it it it you know
I'd luckily done enough work that when
GTA 3 turned up was the first thing that
was resembled real writing. I had all of
these small bits of skills that I could
assemble into it. Um
based on my fairly limited understanding
of how language models work
if you they're not going to they're not
going to replace good ideas. they can't
really come up with good new ideas. What
they can do is do low-level stuff. So, I
think it's going to be harder for people
to start out in some of these spaces. If
you're not very good concept artist,
you're in a lot of trouble. If you have
original ideas, I think you're fine.
But, I think uh I also think that
the fir they they've done the sort of
first 90% of the work to sound human.
95% possibly in some areas. The last 5%
is going to end up being about 95% of
the work. I think that last bit in with
with the with with with tech in my
experience with things like facial
animation always been the last bits and
pieces take far longer than the first
bit. And so I I I I'm probably a hideous
lite, but I'm less scared than a lot of
people. I think you're going to end up
with a lot of work that looks the same.
It's going to help people be creative in
some ways. It's going to get some people
who probably shouldn't be in that space
out of that space, but if you've got
talent, I think it'll be fine.
>> Yeah, it's I agree with you. Uh, totally
actually and it's hard to really put a
finger on it. So, one way to illustrate
that I speak English and Russian and and
I've been reading the sefk in both
languages and using lumps to translate
back and forth because I was preparing
to have a conversation with the
translators of the
>> which ones?
>> Uh, Richard Pier and Lissa Volkski.
>> Yeah, I read quite there when they first
did Crime and Punishment.
>> Mhm.
>> That was amazing.
>> They're wonderful translators and a
wonderful love story too. But in the
translation process, you get to see the
LLM is missing some magic
>> and that they're, you know, that couple
of translators are worldclass experts
capturing the magic. And I can't quite
put that into words cuz you said like
totally novel ideas. Yes.
>> But also this magic of the timing, the
right word at the right time that
captures the human experience. So it
they can do some really incredibly
humanlike the 90% like you mentioned
humanlike phrasing uh about like the
bulk of the storytelling but the magic
you know whether it's you know the the
endings of Red Dead Redemption one and
two the timing of that the word choice
of that everything around that but it's
hard to argue because they're incredibly
impressive winning all kinds of math
competitions but it's what is that
magic? IC. Uh, and again, that could be
just a romantic human side of me just
saying that LL's won't be able to
capture that. Maybe desperately holding
on for hope.
>> I don't think they're going to come up
with magic. I think they're going to be
fantastic at coming up with really
cheap, decent stuff.
>> I have to ask you about your writing
process, and we could break it break it
up on on Grand Theft Auto. GTA 4 is when
they really started ramping up.
>> How much writing went into the Grand
Theft Auto series? How many words are we
talking about? I I saw some thousands of
pages.
>> I mean, when we printed out the scripts
for GTA 4, it was about this high. Yeah.
>> And GTA V was about that high. But that
was including all the pedestrians who'd
have pages and pages just to create the
illusion of a living world because you
interact with each one of them. But even
even the main script for the main
missions was thousands of pages long.
>> What was the writing process like on
that to generate one page at a time? bit
by bit by bit over several years. But
you start with once people had
determined, oh, here's the here's the
world. We're doing one based on a
version of New York, say GTA 4. And um I
was living in New York. I've been living
in New York for a few years.
Wasn't sure if I was happy. I was going
through a lot of personal dramas as
usual. And um and that was why I was
looking at some of GTA 4 again recently
and it's really dark and I was like ah
that's why you know I was uh single and
miserable and and I wasn't sure if I
want to stay in America. My life in a
lot of flux as a company we'd had all
that hot coffee drama. So constantly
thought we might be shut down in the
middle of making that you know the lot
of drama in the company. So it felt like
having had this run of success and and
and relative personal stability from uh
GTA 3 by city San Andreas suddenly 2005
7 early 7 life felt very unsure. Um
and that kind of bled in into it. But in
terms of the process, it was uh
trying to find an underbelly to New York
and capture an immigrant experience. I'm
not entirely sure how accurate that
immigrant experience was in 2008 when
the game came out and then tell it story
from a different angle as an immigrant,
which I thought made it made it
interesting. Um, and then this sort of
journey around these various New York
characters. So I kind of spent probably
a year traveling around with cops or
meeting people on and off and you know
wandering around New York and driving
around and you know on and you know
while just go up for the morning from
the office normal stuff but doing that
through
assembling little notes. Here's a funny
character for this. Here's how figuring
out how the order we want to travel
around the map in um characters this
what was a interesting take on on on the
you know mob for that kind of time
period. what was an interesting take on
on some Jamaican hoodlims for that kind
of time period and um assembling lots of
notes and more and more notes and really
really really running away from the work
which is you know I have to admit it's
part of my process if there is any kind
of process which is not doing work
thinking about it but not working you
know a lot of time and then
>> and then it all kind of pages and pages
of notes make more notes no actual work
months and months of this and then um
finally set myself a deadline told all
the other people on on the scenior the
people on the team. Okay, I'll have a
story draft to you. Monday morning, I
can't even remember. I want to say
February the 1st. And then the the
weekend before was in a in a cabin we we
we we had upstate and just stayed up all
night grab knocking these notes into
shape, assembled about probably a
30-page documents, a story synopsis and
a character synopsis for each of the
major characters, and then hand that
over. And that gets broken that would
get broken down with with me and the
designers. Um, and I was always clear,
I'm not a game designer. I'm a sort of
creative director uh with me and break
that down into missions
>> and then that takes another year or so
of that slowly assembling and then begin
then so the bulk of my work's then done
for a bit so I can relax and and and
offer opinions on other people's work
and feel be lazy for a bit and then um
start to worry because then I've
actually soon I've got to start writing
dialogue and for GTA 4 in particular
like we're going to try and write you
know our animation is going to be a lot
better our character models going to
start look better the world is going to
look amazing. Uh therefore, we can
support better, you know, longer scenes.
We can have more in-depth characters. Uh
but we got to find a tone that works
that with a game. Easy. No problem. I
start to worry and worry and worry and
and also writing as a as a Serbian
immigrant and I was an immigrant, but
I'm not Serbian. And trying to capture
what on earth that would feel like. So,
I start to worry and start to worry
again. Avoid work for as long as
possible. Um, and then just sit down and
start hammering away at a keyboard again
late at night.
>> Hammering away at a keyboard and going,
"Does that right? Is that" And once I
get one speech, one turn of phrase that
I would like for a character, then they
suddenly come alive in my head. And so
it's like writing writing with Nico and
just he's a kind of he's awkward, he's
out of town, but he's got more self
assurance in some way. Not the American
characters. And so once I kind of taught
him through in this he's just stepped
slightly back from their ridiculousness
>> and he's that then he started to come to
life and then I would juxtapose him and
his cousin who had this much more
Americanized energy and that felt like
it was a good a good double act and then
from there it starts to come to life and
and but it's written in small chunks uh
for the motion. So then then we'd motion
capture small chunks and then the other
other writers would write the mission
dialogue for small chunks and we'd
slowly assemble the game sort of 10 15
missions at a time over the next year
and a half.
>> Do you remember a few maybe lines that
uh brought Nico to life?
>> Yeah, I think so. I mean, it was a
couple of it was his incredul when his
cousin picks him up in an old car and
he's not living this fancy American
lifestyle and his cousin's so which was
a kind of comic moment and his cousin's
and then they go to the cousin's flat
and the cousin also even though he was a
sort of a failure was still upbeat and
then when he talked to the cousin and he
talked about his wartime experiences and
how harrowing they were and I was like
this is can I make this work in a game?
It's very different from stuff you
normally see in games. Is it gonna feel
ridiculous? And I remember being very
scared because I thought it might be too
much. It might feel over the top. I was
I think, you know, the game's so pretty.
The artist doing such an amazing job.
The game's looking, you know, I think we
can get away with this. Let's try it.
And then it then motion capture the
animation back like, "Yeah, it kind of
works." And I think that moment those
were both pretty early. Once we had
those, you go, "Okay, we've now got
comedy and tragedy in the g with this
character. Now I now it's working." You
remember during the war we did some bad
things and bad things happened to us.
Huh? War is where the young and stupid
are tricked by the old and bitter into
killing each other. I was very young and
very angry.
Maybe that is no excuse.
>> Yeah, he escaped. He's a veteran. He
escaped the trauma of war
>> to come to America to pursue the
American dream. I suppose
which became for him this thing that
drags him back into violence. Yes, he
can never escape his sort of violent
past or I don't know if he can never
escape it. He never does escape it. You
know, whether he's got agency or not is
a whole another question. Of course, he
doesn't cuz, you know, he's a character
in a video game. But, you know, whe
whether he ever could have escaped in
another way, who knows?
I think uh he's probably the greatest
character for me created in the Grand
Theft Auto series. What of all the
characters you've written in Grand Theft
Auto,
would Nico be
the the best character you created?
>> I think he's the most
innovative and the most morally
defensible in some ways. you know,
normally he does a lot of stuff where
he's fighting for right. He's the nicest
person in some ways. Um, is he the best
protagonist of a GTA game? I think he's
the most innovative protagonist of a GTA
game. Structurally, he might be too nice
in some ways. Um, he's also tough. Like,
he just comes across as tough. I loved
CJ and San Andreas. I thought Melee did
s he's got just the way he spoke gave
him such humanity. So, I just loved I
mean, not wasn't the writing, it was the
quality of the voice acting was just so
strong for him. I think aspects of
Michael, he was so understated, but he
loved the character, but he brought so
much humanity to this character who's so
flawed, who is such a, you know, he's
sold has no principles. He sells
everyone out. You just kind of I think
Ned Luke did such an amazing job and and
didn't necessarily get as many as many
plaudits as as Steven Og got for Trevor,
who was also wonderful, but I think the
Nedloop character so anchors that game
so much. So, I like all of them in
different ways, but I probably love Nico
the most.
>> And of course, uh uh Michael's from
Grand Theft Auto 5, and he's one of
three protagonists with also Franklin
and Trevor. And you said that of the
things you're proud of creating and you
think was a great accomplishment. It was
Red Dead Redemption 2, the ending of Red
Dead Redemption 1, all of Grand Theft
Auto 4, and the middle part of Grand
Theft Auto 5 when the three characters
come together. Mhm.
>> Can you speak to the the Grand Theft
Auto 5? Is there some degree? I don't
know if you're a dusty guy, but is there
is there some aspect of the three
protagonists sort of, you know, brothers
Kaza, Aloha, Dmitri, and Ivonne,
>> sort of using the protagonist to explore
the the spectrum of human nature and
just the tension between them. That's
that allows you the the the three of
them become a character in themselves.
>> Their relationship. Yeah, it was it was
I think one of the reasons that that
that the team did such that Grand Theft
Auto is still so popular is we always
tried as a group to really innovate from
game to game within the confines of what
it was. It was a crime it was a crime
drama, you know, began as a crime crime
sim in GTA 1 about stealing, you know,
2D top down cars. And we always try to
innovate with the narrative and innovate
with the with the art direction,
innovate with every piece of the game.
And uh I think having done you know GTA
4 which was this kind of oporatic
journey for this big league character
and then these two extra stories that
came afterwards. Uh the I the the the
challenge was can we combine can we make
a a video game which tends to be very
much focused on one protagonist but have
multiprotagonists and and and the the
technical challenge of moving from
character to character. The team did
such an amazing job that I don't think
people realized how hard it was. But we
would sit there just sort of holding our
heads because they hurt so much around
like what happens if you do this then do
that. It's just this is so hard. Why
have we why have we decided to do this?
It's horrible. Um and then it all came
together. Uh but I think the the the
idea was develop three characters who do
feel like characters. They don't just
feel like philosophical, you know, or
psychological avatars, but where one is
really really driven by ego, one is
really driven by id and one is really
driven by trying to get ahead. So, some
kind of representation of the super ego
and see how that feels when they all
play off against each other.
>> One of the most upvoted questions on uh
Reddit about GTA 5 uh from a fan, GTA V
is my favorite game ever made. I spent
over 1,000 hours in the world of GTA 5
and GTA Online. GTA 4 is a hard second
or third. It never ceases to impress me.
When you lead a team of over 1,000
people to make a masterpiece like GTA 5
or Red Dead Redemption 2, how do you
ensure that the bar of perfection is
always met? How is that even possible?
We know the answer isn't money because
there's other studios with a lot of
money and they are two decades behind
Rockstar. So, what does it take to
create these worlds to create these
incredibly compelling games? the cult I
mean certainly when I was when I was at
at Rockstar I was a
worker amongst workers you know the
culture was was one of excellence and
tried to provide creative clarity and
and people just you know and also an
ambition to make I think we were like we
thought GTA 3 could be really popular
but really popular to us meant quite
honestly it's going to sell two or three
million copies um and we thought we were
making something pretty innovative. I
mean, we we knew making something
innovative, but we didn't know if people
would understand how innovative it was.
And then when we got the chance to make
to make Vice City and to try and repeat
it, I think every time from then on, the
team was very driven to make something
better and to use this long before we
had lots of resources to use time and
whatever money we had to always put
impressive stuff on the screen, always
think about what we can do to push the
medium of video games and the sort of
medium of building fake worlds further.
And that was always, you know, there was
it was a it was, you know, both clarity
of here's what we're trying to do.
Here's what the tone of the game is
going to be. Here's how features will
fit into that and to why these features
would work and these features wouldn't
work. Cuz fundamentally by 2002, you
could put pretty much any feature into a
game you wanted. Um, it wasn't a it
wasn't a tech there wasn't a technical
limitation. It was just a making it
cohesive. Um, and then it was also just
uh everyone committing to a culture of
excellence. N'vi Kansar, an
award-winning director and virtual
reality game maker who worked with you
on a number of Grand Theft Auto games,
spoke highly about his time working with
you. Quote, "We always worked ourselves
to the bone, but it wasn't coming from
the top down. Sam and Dan always rolled
up their sleeves, and they were always
there. They never left us holding the
bag. We all thought we were making
badass so it didn't matter how
hard we worked. So, I'm sure there were
some tough grinds.
>> Finishing it is certainly it's tough,
but it also is, you know, intensely
rewarding and and you you get something
done and you've made something and that
feeling is is is, as you say, really
really incredible. I mean, can sometimes
feel a bit empty as well cuz it's when
when you finish it, you're like and my
life's got nothing to it and then you
have to, you know, but that's the same
with any big undertaking you take. I
don't think there you know when you're
working that hard, you do not have a
good work life balance. But the truth is
you're not working that hard all the
time.
>> So just you have to just manage it
slightly differently.
>> Man, that's such a heavy thing about the
human experience. I've talked to Olympic
gold winners and many of them face real
depression after they win the gold
medal.
>> Yeah.
>> Because they've been pursuing a thing
that they deeply care about. This has
been everything and they truly happy to
do it and then it's like what else is
there in life? What compared to this?
What else is there? So that's the ups
and downs of life. It's you need the
darkness, you need the lows to really
experience the highs.
Uh let me ask you about the pressure.
Uh there's an insane level of excitement
and expectation for Grand Theft Auto 6.
Uh same was true for GTA 5 and GTA 4 and
even before that and you and the team
delivered every time. Uh how difficult
was it to uh do creative work under such
pressure where everyone expects this to
be a success?
>> I was pretty good at compartmentalizing,
you know, and it just saying and at I
try just to go and when with all
creative work I I I go, well, I feel
like a terrible fraud, but I haven't
been found out yet. Just do my best and
hopefully I won't be found out this
time. And just if I can be if I can go I
tried hard with the work. I tried to do
it with integrity. I tried not to copy
someone else. I probably done all of the
above. You know, try to bring something
new to it. And we made and we as a group
made something we are proud of. Then
that's enough. You can't if you don't
want to go insane or if I didn't want to
go insane, I couldn't sit there and
worry about financial results. You know,
if we made something great and it didn't
sell, that would have to be okay. uh
because the goal is to make something
that's you know video games are
expensive so it is a sort of commercial
form of creativity it's a commercial art
form you know so
you have to be an alumni you're spending
large amounts of someone else's money um
you have to try and make it back for
them but at the same time my my argument
with myself was well if we the way to
make it back is try and make something
great so both pressures are pointing in
the same direction um I think GTA 4 was
very pressured cuz there had been all
this pressure on the company. The
company nearly imploded several times uh
due to hot coffee. It was extremely
tough. So, I think that felt very
stressful. GTA 3, the company was
basically broke, but I was young. I
didn't really care, you know. It wasn't
I wasn't living in in in in the grown-up
world yet. All of them had their own
pressure. All of the games had their own
pressure. All the more I felt I gone
into it creatively and tried to be more
ambitious. For me personally, I felt
more pressure, you know, when it uh when
it came out that that that would that
would have been the right choice because
again, if you're trying to take big
swings creatively and you've spent a lot
of money, that can be quite stressful.
You know, I think with with with Red
Dead 2 when you know, we we were behind
schedule, we were over budget so much I
didn't want to think about it and you're
making a game about a cowboy dying of TB
and the game's not coming together.
Turns out a lot of people doubt you at
that moment. you know, it's not that
fun. So, I think that was a lot of
pressure. Um, but you know, anything any
doing something new, you know, the new
stuff, there's not necessary pressure on
releasing a comic book or in the same
way cuz it's not taken as long. But, you
know, if you're making things, there's
always pressure that people are going to
like it.
>> Why do you think there was so much
excitement about GTA 4, GTA 5, and now
GTA 6? because they don't come out that
regularly. And I think we did a really
good job of constantly innovating within
what the IP was. The games always felt
different. You know, people have very
strong feelings. I like this one. I
didn't like that one as much cuz they
are pretty different. So you there would
be simultaneously where you know what's
going to happen. It's a Grand Theft
Auto. You know, it's going to be a game
about being a criminal, but the way it's
going to be a game is going to change
quite a lot. So, I think the way the the
IP kept evolving meant people being
really excited to play it and we were
good at marketing them as well. We we
really tried to market them in a way
that felt like an update of classic film
marketing where you were really felt
like you're already in the product just
because you'd seen the trailers and
stuff.
>> You mentioned that you haven't written
for Grand Theft Auto 6. What's it feel
like Grand Theft Auto 6 returning to
Vice City? This is over 20 years later,
but the original GTA Vice City game was
set in the 80s. So maybe inspired by
Scarface a little bit.
>> Scarface, Miami Vice,
>> Miami Vice
>> and our 80s childhoods. You know the
what I realized quite a while ago
unfortunately was that we made that game
and it was set I think in ' 86 and it we
made it in 2002 so 16 years after and
now it's waved past 16 years since Vice
City came out so it was uh the ' 80s
were not that long ago when we made it
>> you know I think Miami is one of the
most unique cities in the world. Oh
yeah,
>> especially if you're thinking about
satarizing American culture. It has this
duality of a glossy surface and a dark
underworld as the influencers has the
crypto bros, the yachts, bikinis,
plastic surgery, sports cars, drugs,
cartel cash, luxury, super rich people,
and uh the desperately poor, just the
whole of it. Would it be like the
perfect city to explore the full cast of
uh characters that are possible that
human nature can generate? I think it's
one of them. You know, there's a reason
why GTA kept coming back to Miami, New
York, Los Angeles. I think they're all
very good for exactly what you laid out.
You know, you could you could say move
it to any of those and it would work,
>> you know.
>> So, yeah, there's a melting pot aspect
also, right?
>> Yeah. A melting pot aspect to LA,
>> you know. There's glitz, glamour,
underbelly, immigrants,
>> you know, enormous wealth in all of
them. I think those are what I think are
really fun for any, not even just for
GTA, but for anything where you want a
kind of slice of life, almost like a
sort of psychotic version of a Dickens
book, you know, this big slice of life.
He did it with London, you know, this
psychotic version of of these, you know,
big all kinds of characters in a melting
pot. Any of these global cities work
well for that.
>> Do you know if that was ever a
consideration to go elsewhere
to like a London? We made a little thing
in London 26 years ago, GTA London for
the top down for the PS1. Um, that was
pretty cute and fun as the first mission
pack ever for PlayStation one. I think
for a full GTA game, we always decided
it was there was so much Americana
inherent in the IP. It would be really
hard to make it work in London or who
else. You know, you needed guns, you
needed this larger than life characters.
It, you know, it just it just felt like
it was the game was so much about
America, you know, possibly from an
outsiders perspective, but you know,
that that was so much about what the
thing was that it wouldn't really have
worked in the same way elsewhere. So,
you've you've created I don't know how
many over 10 Grand Theft Auto games,
>> I think. So,
>> I have to ask, is it a little bit
bittersweet to say to not be part to say
goodbye to the Grand Theft Auto world
and having to watch Grand Theft Auto 6
released or is it more excitement? Is it
what's the feeling?
>> I think it's a it's
how would I describe it? Of course, it's
all all of the above, you know. It's
it's exactly as you you know pleased to
be doing other stuff. Excited for what
we're working on now. Super excited. Um
of course letting go of something. I
worked on it one way or another for like
20 odd years, you know, and and and
wrote on them for the last 10 or 11 that
came out. Wrote all of them, you know,
lead writer on all them, whatever it
was. Um,
so of course letting go of that
is, you know, is a big is a big change
and and a lot and and and sad in a way.
Um, because
it was each of the games was a kind of
standalone story. It's not quite the
same as as I think probably it would be
in some ways sadder if someone continued
on Red Dead because it was a cohesive
two game arc. that might be more sad to
hear someone working on that. But again,
not that that will probably happen, too.
They're not I don't own the IP. That was
the sort of part of the the the deal.
It's a privilege to work on stuff, but
you don't necessarily own it.
>> That when you're done with the game,
does it always feel like a goodbye? Like
when you say when you're done with uh
Red Dead 2 is like you're saying goodbye
to Arthur, like the characters you
created, you're walking away.
>> You kind of are saying goodbye to Arthur
in the end of the game, even before the
end of the game. Um, yeah, I think
you've got, you know, I've been with
them for seven, eight years and and you
have to kind of let it go or you can't
go on to the next one.
>> Yeah.
>> So, it was always this thing of of okay,
that's done. And sometimes people would
ask me questions and I about older games
and certainly when I was in the middle
of making new ones in the I couldn't
really necessarily even remember. I've
got a pretty good memory normally
because you kind of have to let it go.
So I it's it's not it's you're so
immersed in it and thinking about it and
certainly in that last period the last
few months you're really really immersed
in every little nuance and every little
detail all of the time and then you're
just not thinking about it in the same
way.
>> Yeah. It's funny from the player
perspective it feels like an old friend
that I miss whether it's John or Arthur
or Nico. It's a real goodbye. That's
there's a real sadness to finishing a
video game. like legitimately a sad
exper not just because the story
>> is sad or
>> because you've been with them so long.
>> Yeah. And it's a real goodbye to close
it. There's that feeling when you're
sort of close the video game
>> and it's I mean it's like saying goodbye
to a friend.
>> That's when you finish a book you love.
>> It's the same feeling. And I think that
was something that we really in the
early days of of Rockstar really aspired
to have that where people would have
that. It wasn't just the mania of of
clearing a level, but the feeling of
saying goodbye to characters, you know,
I think that was something we really
wanted to achieve in games that we
didn't know was even possible. So to
hear people say that is incredibly
rewarding.
>> Yeah. The end of On the Road by Carowak,
Fourlor Rags of Growing Old. I just
remember closing that and thinking,
"What the am I doing in this big
world?" It's a melancholic feeling, but
there's nothing like that feeling. And
you've achieved that. It's so rare in
video games to be able to achieve that
with Red Dead. And for me, it was Grand
Theft Auto 4 with Nico. I have to ask
about in that 2018 interview, you talked
about satarizing American culture, which
I think Grand Theft Auto was trying to
do. And you've made, I think, a really
powerful observation that on the
political front, people are getting more
divided. It's getting more absurd and
ridiculous and extreme. So, becoming
harder and harder to satarize because of
how rapidly it's becoming ridiculous.
You're talking about you don't even know
if Grand Theft Auto 6 if it's possible
to satarize
because by the time you release the
thing, it's already going to be outdated
in terms of the the satire will become
reality essentially. Uh, first of all,
it'd be nice to get your updated view on
that. And second of all, it seems like
you've answered your very own comment
with uh American caper, which
seems to satarize American culture just
fine in how much over the top it goes.
Anyway, that's lots of questions in
there. One of the things we've enjoyed
about doing a comic book is that we are,
it still has lead times, but the lead
times are not four or five years. the
lead times are, you know, a year and
we're putting we can make little updates
much much newer and we're, you know,
we're we're just wrapping issue 10 of a
of a 12 issue arc for that. So, it's not
quite it's not quite as difficult. You
still can get the tone of it. Um, but
yeah, I think it's uh I think it's an
issue anyone trying to talk about this
current era which began in 2015 2016 is
going to have of how do you characterize
it when things move so quickly and so
fast.
>> So American Caper is first of all epic
comic book. I love it. The art
>> Yeah, the art's beautiful. David Lapam
is the artist. He did an amazing job. He
is a he is a wonderful wonderful
storyteller.
>> What made you set want to set it in
Wyoming? hadn't seen a modern story
there that I knew about. I'd started to
spend a bit more time in the Rockies and
in the West and I was like I'd spent a
lot of time in like the countryside in
upstate New York and and thought it
never really captured it quite right and
just the idea of these places as they
change. It didn't it was a way of doing
a crime story that didn't feel the same
as a GTA. You know, it was not somewhere
you would necessarily set a GTA, but it
felt like it was really interesting and
underexplored.
>> And there is over the top stuff. There's
there's
>> Yeah, it's definitely slightly over the
top.
>> So, let me take notes on this. There's a
a spoiler alert, I guess, from the first
issue, I believe. Uh there's a devout
suburban Mormon who commits, I think,
serial murder with a shovel as a form of
religious atonement.
>> He is not necessarily, you know, the
sharpest tool in the box. and his uh his
uh his rather cynical boss is using his
his religion and some mistakes he's made
to blackmail him into murdering business
associates.
>> And of course, there's this
Shakespearean sort of two neighbors
situation and each of them having a
duality of who they are in terms of good
and evil.
>> So there's a Wall Street transplant who
wants to be a cowboy.
>> Yes.
>> Who loves to manually harvest bullsemen.
accurate. I mean, I'm uh Yes, this is
the notes I've been taking.
>> He is a um he is a somewhat confused,
longevity obsessed rich dude who's run
away to Wyoming and is living out an
assortment of fantasies.
>> And Bull Seaman is a big component of
longevity.
>> Yes, he's very into all the life hacking
uh you know, roid roiding, HGH, and and
making money
>> and
>> and has lost his mind living on a big
ranch. Of course, on the theme of
satire, there is a woman who uh sleeps
in tactical gear and is consumed by
online conspiracies like especially
pedophiles in DC.
>> Yes. Based on someone I know who got
completely redpilled and I was
fascinated by the fact that this was
happening to people.
>> Yeah. So, you know, satire of American
culture.
>> Quick pause. Bathroom break. Sure.
I think GTA 5 had the biggest launch in
video game history and uh GTA 6 has the
potential to uh topping that. First of
all, do you think it will? And more
broadly, what was your definition of
success for a video game?
>> I would assume it will because it's so
anticipated and anticipation is the best
driver of early sales. As we saw with
GTA 4 versus Red Dead Redemption 1, you
know, GTA 4, far more anticipated, sold
much better early on, so I would assume
it will sell really well. That was never
my definition of success, but you
certainly wanted to make money. You
know, you're spending someone's money.
So, the number one success is, oh,
you're making that money back plus a
dollar at at some level. That has to be
that has to be the single most important
thing. So, you get to do it again. you
know, you got big teams of people,
people need to pay the rent, you have to
keep the lights on in the business. So,
you have to make a small profit. If you
think in that way, that keeps you being
creative. I think that was like trying
to forget about that. It's not really an
option. Um, but we almost always did
that. We didn't quite always do that,
but we almost always did that. I think
the definition of success for me was had
we tried to do new things and done them
or achieved some of our goals. That was
the thing that I matter. And were people
responding to these worlds and these
characters in a way that I wanted them
to?
>> Is it crazy to you that video games are
able to make billions of dollars when if
you look at like the 80s and 90s,
you know, nobody took video games
seriously and even in the awesome it
and now they're basically I it's very
possible if you look at 10 20 years from
now that video games surpass film as a
way to consume stories. I think they've
possibly already done that in some ways
and certainly as an as a business
proposition they've already done that
but I think that's not you know as a as
a way of telling stories I think they're
better at telling certain kinds of
stories and films are better other kinds
of stories you know I think I think if
you want a long discursive adventure a
video game is better if you want a short
tight experience a film is better we
always felt games were the coming medium
and so spent
20 years saying games of the future,
games of the future and you know being
sneered at them being laughed at them
being having people nod their heads and
then it kind of happening. So I would
you know at the same time much as you
might say something you don't
necessarily believe it's going to be
true. Um but it has become true and I
think still the games are only going to
get better more interesting more
creatively you know diverse.
Uh, you said that Red Dead Redemption 2,
in your opinion, is the best thing
you've ever done. I think there's a
strong case to be made that it's the
greatest game of all time. What are the
elements that make that game truly
great, do you think? I think you had an
incredibly strong team working together
that was very experienced um that had
basically been in place since somewhere
between 2001 and 2006. So, it was a long
experienced team. I think we got to
spend a smaller group of us working on
it from day one coming up with some
weird wacky ideas that we got to embed
in the game and uh then we kind of had
to follow through with that I think was
helpful like we got to be very creative
before it had full team on it. I think
that the cowboy setting uh is great
because it gives a sort of mythic
seriousness that sometimes doing stuff
in a contemporary setting doesn't allow.
You know, I think the closest we got to
that kind of seriousness was GTA 4, but
it just can't. Once you're setting
things in the modern world, they're too
frenetic. you can't get some of that
slightly,
you know, oporatic feel that I love that
that that some people think is maybe a
little over the top, but I, you know, I
love this kind of, you know, people
searching for meaning within Amongst the
Violence. I think that the the the West
and all of the themes around the West
really lend itself to that.
>> So, I think that and then the the
gunplay was fantastic. Um, and the
horses were incredible. So I think you
had this combination of kind of
technical knowhow, a very very strong
team and really strong material.
>> Where did you have to go to in your mind
maybe philosophically, maybe spiritually
to be able to create the RDR world? So,
of course, it was based on Red Dead
Revolver, but that's that's a
fundamentally uh different I mean that
leap into the great mythic story that
was Red Dead Redemption 1 and then even
more so Red Dead Redemption 2 that was
unlike anything you or maybe anyone has
ever created in video games.
>> Thank you.
>> So, like what uh drugs were involved?
>> No drugs.
>> Okay.
>> No, stop the stop the drugs. was long
before. Okay, that's why I did all that
work. Um had nothing else to do.
>> Uh so open open world video games were
very good for my mental health in that
way. Kept me busy.
>> Um but uh Red So Red I'll tell I'll give
you the my version. Now games are made
by big teams. Yeah. So but I will give
you my human interest version of the
story from my perspective only. Um, we
we made Red Dead Revolver, decided that
or finished Red Dead Revolver that being
a Capcom game and they didn't want to
finish it. So, we finished it and they
released in Japan and we released it in
the US in I think 2004. Um, and decided
we would start work on open world cowboy
game for PS3.
um didn't think too much more about it
and that was when we had a bunch of
other stuff to work on and slowly 2005
the game started to come to life began
to uh meet with uh the lead designer
Christian Cantamesa and thrash out a few
ideas and story ideas for for the game
and begin to think about some stuff and
start thinking about what works for an
open world game, what works for a cowboy
game and again was being lazy or
procrastinating.
>> Uh can we just on a small tangent? Uh
when you mentioned you take notes when
you're being lazy, what do those notes
look like?
>> Are they like
>> either either a yellow pad or a
Blackberry in those days or an iPhone in
these days? I'll write the subject
matter and then just email myself a
note.
>> Here's a good idea. It's a good idea. Or
might be scribbling on a pad. Um, and
then I'll assemble if I if they're done
digitally, then I'll do I'll assemble
them into one long word file and then
I'll look at them and go, you know,
here's an idea, here's an idea, here's
an idea, and see if it comes to
anything. See if I aggregate them
together and then read through them
there's anything coherent there. You
know, some a character like this, a
character like that, this would be a
funny line. This is a line for the main
character. Actually, make the main
character work like this. You know, what
about this relationship? um as you start
to just play around with what about if
we start in that place, go to that
place, just start to play around with
all of the different bits and pieces.
And we began to flesh out some flow for
the start of the game and this idea
you'd start in dusty American West,
which meant we didn't have to make too
many trees, and then go to Mexico and
then come back. Um, and we had a sort of
loose flow, and I was really scared of
writing any actual dialogue. Um, and I
didn't have a clue how to go about it.
And I it'll come. It'll come. And then,
um, and I kept I could postpone it ages
because doing GTA 4 and I kept worrying
about it. And then GT my work was
wrapped on GTA 4, but the game wasn't
out yet. And we've done a bunch of the
marketing stuff. And I had a little
window when I wasn't doing much else.
And I took a week with my then
girlfriend, now wife, who was heavily
pregnant with our first child. And we
went up to uh a house upstate and sat
there in the well, she she she sat
there, either cooking for me or watching
TV or reading. And I went and sat in the
room all day every day and just sat
there and stared at the computer and
tried to think about how can I do this
that it doesn't sound ridiculous? How
can you write in in in a in a cowboy
idiom that feels both slightly
contemporary but also gives the game
this sort of life and this weight that I
want it to have and think we can think
we can get away with and
after about 3 days it just started to
come and then suddenly I wrote about
nine 10 scenes in the next couple of
days and after that knew I had it and it
was don't know if it was that was why
there was so much about a character
caring about his family because I was
just beginning the process of having a
family.
>> Oh, I don't I don't know to what extent
that bled in there, but I think it bled
in there to some extent.
>> So, that was part of the creating the
360 degree characters,
>> I think. So,
>> here's this man
uh that is capable is involved in a lot
of violence, who's also cares about his
family,
>> grown up and is trying to step away from
that and be and be a man, be a grown-up,
and can he get away from it? And then
and then when he can't get away from it,
what's he willing to do to save his
family? And that was I felt starting to
get some idea feeling just I mean she
hadn't given birth yet but I was
beginning to grapple with the ideas of
I'm going to become a parent. So I hope
some of that and obviously then I didn't
probably didn't write anymore for 6
months later on we had a had a child but
but certainly for that first bit I think
some of that began to bleed in there.
>> You got the feeling that you can
actually do it. It it's true. It's
uh it could have very easily been
ridiculous and not believable the the
dialogue between cowboys and I mean
there probably so much work went into
making it feel real and believable and
and like that like
>> uh like a Shakespearean type of drama
but not the cheesy kind. Well, just
wanted it to feel when they spoke. I
mean, I love dialogue. I'm always, you
know, I love the the sound of words, but
just wanted to feel like when they
sounded, it didn't sound cheesy. It
didn't sound ridiculous. You wanted to
hear them speak more. It didn't make you
cringe awfully when they spoke. That was
the some level that was all the goal
was. And then they felt like this guy
was going to go on this life and death
odyssey. And you cared about him. You
had to care about his wife and child
that he left behind even though you
didn't know them. When did you know how
you're going to end Red Dead Redemption
one?
>> I remember I did a meeting with uh
Christian the designer.
I can't remember what year. Probably
some point late 2008, early 2009. And we
were discussing the last bit and and and
uh said uh I think he's got to die. And
he leapt on the idea and went that's you
know yes, yes. No. No. I went it can't
work. Games can't work like that. They
can't work if he's dead. And I began to
think through well if we just
technically it doesn't work because you
have to be able to finish all the stuff
up and then began to think through
actually I think we can make it work if
we do it this way. And so uh he then
really pushed for that idea and it
seemed to I was like I was still torn. I
thought it was clever narratively um but
I was torn if it was going to work
technically as a piece of game design
but I think it did.
>> Yeah. And uh spoiler alert of course.
How do we tell the story of that? Well,
so he goes through a lot. He does all
the John does all the dirty work of
hunting down his old gang and he finally
is able to go home and be with his
family,
be on the ranch, and then the government
betrays him and sends
uh uh troops to to kill him and and
there is dialogue. I mean that just uh I
think the two times I shed a tear in
video game history for me is
that dialogue
I think John talking to his wife if I
vaguely remember I think he said I love
you but he said very little he didn't he
made it seem like he's going to see her
and his son shortly that dialogue was
masterfully done like a definition of
like less is more. It was just so crisp
that and of course the other one is um
again from memory Arthur riding
his horse and the music is playing. It's
very hard not to shed a tear during
that. Um anyway, the dialogue of uh John
talking to his wife
at at the end when he's in a barn and is
about to walk out to face certain death.
Uh, do you remember writing that?
>> Oh, yeah. Yeah. But it does again I went
I the actor was so good and we already
seen a bunch of his work by then. He had
such a good he was so good at reading
those lines that I knew he could give us
that you could feel with that point like
I think those lines are best when
they're really short and punchy
>> and so I knew he'd be able to make that
line sound good.
>> So you were imagining his voice.
and and and I think all of those actors
on on on Red Dead Redemption one were so
strong that they really brought that
game to life. If they them and Rod the
director had done s such a good job, it
would have sounded cheesy as hell.
>> Uh yeah, you've said that the ending of
that ending uh of RDR1
is uh one of the best things you've been
a part of creating. Uh why why is why is
that ending so powerful to you? What
does it represent?
>> Um, I think because
for the story to work, I mean, just from
a from a technical challenge, for the
story to work, he had to die. But for a
game to work, it felt like a challenge
to make him die. It was probably the
fourth, fifth, or sixth open world game
I'd worked on. And I, you know, spent
all these years before that working out
how these stories worked, how to make
them work technically, how to make them
feel right, how they interacted with the
open form gameplay as best I could. And
suddenly, we're going to break one of
our golden rules, which was at the end
of the game, you're freeing the
character to go and wrap up all the side
stories to play forever. We're not
you're not going to be able to do that
in this game because the guy's going to
be dead and we're going to have to have
you play as a different character and
the the narrative is is going to be if
we've done a good job compelling enough
where you're not going to care about
that and um or you're going to be upset
that he's dead but you're going to
actually have this emotional moment. Um
so I think it was a big risk from a
technical perspective for us to do that
and then it worked. So I think that was
something was very full of fear and it
put and it worked. It worked out okay. I
mean, I think people were really upset
and angry at us for doing it because
they didn't think it was going to
happen, but I think they also had that
kind of experience you're describing.
It's that kind of creative moment where,
you know, transcendent moment with with
characters in a piece of fiction, which
is what we've always aspiring to giving
people.
>> I mean, it's incredible because I don't
think I I don't remember a single video
game that has done that before.
>> Well, I would like to have at the end of
GTA 4 killed Nico, but you couldn't do
it.
>> You know, the game doesn't work. So, it
was this thing where we hadn't done it,
thought about doing it, hadn't done it,
and then going, "Let's do it. Let's
let's take the risk and do it. We can't
do it. Let's try try it." And it worked.
Yeah. What about the decision with the
son? You know, John give so much effort
to make sure that Jack doesn't end up in
a life of violence
and then it uh I mean, it's very
Godfatherlike. It's he's dragged back
into it through revenge.
That was also the game still had to work
as a game. Whether that was the right
ending, 100% the best ending from a pure
storytelling perspective, I don't know.
Um, but I know that we had to make the
game work.
>> Interesting.
>> So, it was I think it was I think it
kind of worked in that way where where
Jack can't escape, but I always also
wanted a version of it where Jack did
escape, but that wasn't, you know, both
were interesting to me.
>> Can you just dig in a little deeper?
Like what do you mean about for the game
to work? It's such a direct it's like a
cuber talking about for this movie to
work it has to have cuz from my
perspective I just think about the
story. What's the technical aspect for
the
>> just the you know the mechanical
experience is you have an avatar you
control and you you you know the games
don't really end and you have to be able
to wander around the world and do stuff.
So, at the end of the game, you had to
be able to wander around with your
fairly limited set of uh features, which
is you can, you know, run up to someone
and punch them or run up to someone and
shoot them or run up to someone and rob
them or run up to someone and talk to
them and and that's kind or run, you
know, jump on a horse or or or do all
this other stuff. in order for the game
still to be fun and people to get this
full 360 degree experience with it, they
had to, you know, hund if they wanted to
100% the game as opposed to just
finishing the story, you have to have an
avatar to do that stuff with. So that
was uh that was the sort of challenge of
of Jack's character slash wrapping up
the story as Jack.
>> Although there's real power
uh for the Avatar to end the finitness.
>> Yeah. both the Red Deads, you obviously
change Avatar,
>> which we regard, you know, and then did
it again. I I think there's something
interesting about that moment when you
change from one character to another
because they are you and they're not
you,
>> you know, and then just suddenly you're
someone else.
>> Mhm. I mean, I was really shaken by that
experience, but it's a it's a beautiful
experience. It's like an unforgettable
experience. And that what else can video
games possibly reach for, you know?
That's to create that experience. That's
what great films do. That's what great
great great books do.
>> It's that I mean it's that and the world
building in games. I think the
experience of being in this fake place
and then taking on these narrative
adventures when that combines you've got
the amazing experience. So who do you
think is the best character you've ever
created in RDR? So to me I think
definitively Arthur from uh Red Dead
Redemption 2 is the best character ever
created in video games ever.
I I think there's not even I mean John
will be the which is hilarious to say
but like th those are uh John will be a
close second but Arthur is definitively
and you you've talked about in that
interview you said that uh a lot of
video games
uh work on the same premise that you
start as a weak person and end up as a
strong superhero. Uh, but what if you
start as a tough guy? Someone who
already is very strong, someone that is
emotionally confident of his place in
the world. Arthur's journey is not about
becoming a superhero because he's almost
one at the start, but it's about an
intellectual roller coaster when his
worldview gets taken apart. So, it's
it's a it's very different than the
normal journey of a character.
>> Yeah. In a game to reverse it.
>> Yeah. So there were a couple other
themes that matched that. So they're
guys from the Wild West, but they're
being pushed ever further east.
>> So it's almost like an anti-western, an
eastern. You're traveling east. You're
traveling into civilization. And I I
don't think I would have
been grappling with those ideas
earlier in my career cuz it was, you
know, this idea of getting getting a
different kind of strength and a
different kind of weakness was
interesting. What about the component of
mortality of a character facing his own
mortality over a prolonged period? Sort
of just real the the prospect of
uh like real sort of fear of death,
realization of death.
>> Yeah, I thought that was really part of
the story
>> really fun thing to play with. Um John
dies in Red Dead one uh and wanted to
top that with Red Dead 2 or do do that
in a different way. And so the idea that
it's John's death is fairly sudden. And
so if he's got this long drawn out death
and then I'd always been
obsessed by TB as diseases go, it's a
great literary device.
>> Mhm.
>> You know, because it is this long drawn
out slow death, but in which you are
also getting weaker. And my grandfather
actually had TB before they invented
antibiotics and was sent to a sanatorium
just after he was just after he'd had
his child, my father, and survived. But
only three of them out of like 35
survived. So I was always uh captivated
and and by TB as an illness. It felt
like it was an interesting thing to play
around with as an idea. This this guy
getting weaker who felt like he was
immortal and essentially was immortal.
He was the protagonist in a video game.
He could not die and suddenly he is
becoming mortal and and you know but
that helps him see stuff. I thought that
was a different way of doing a a lead
character in a game. Yeah. Do you think
it's the the greatest character we've
ever created?
>> I think he's the best lead character.
You know, the lead characters are
different from the side characters. And
I think he's the he's the most
rounded and works the best. I kind of
him and Nico are the two I like, you
know, they were the two most ambitious.
So, for me, it's always it's always sort
of a toss up, you know. But then I loved
all the stuff like the the the art team
did such an amazing job. It was their
eyes with the journal and that kind of
like the way that all the features
worked into Arthur's character. I
thought that was really he was really
rounded. He worked in a in lots of
different ways really well. I loved like
>> his flawed relationship with his old
girlfriend. Things like that. All the
side, you know, the bits that kind of
turned up around him.
>> So you also like the side characters. Do
you like the the flavor the of the the
full cast? What are what are some of the
favorites you've created? I'm I'm sure
the one you're currently working on, not
Dave, that's a you called him a side
character.
>> Well, he's not a protagonist. He's like
a go he's a god, not a character. So,
he's not him. I'm enjoying.
>> Um I love Dutch.
>> Mhm. You know, it was partly because we
wrote a few lines for him for the first
game and the actor did such a uh such an
amazing job that when he spoke, it just
came to me all of their backstory,
>> which I'd been playing around with by
that point anyway, a little bit in my
head, but I knew it was this bigger gang
stuff. And then I sort of saw exactly
who he was. And so that was that that
felt like he he felt like a living
character to me. And we should say that
Dutch is kind of like maybe a little bit
of a godlike figure. Yeah.
>> In both of the Red Dead Redemption
games, he's the leader of the gang. And
there's a father-son relationship with
with Dutch with the uh I mean with
Arthur with John. I mean there's there's
a family feeling to the gang that you
explore all those dynamics and then the
feeling of betrayal and Arthur facing
tuberculosis.
you're going against the family, going
against the father because he is
transforming his uh sense of the world
of morality of all those kinds of
things. So all the kind of very
Shakespearean drama is right there and
Dutch is a prominent godlike figure
through all of that. Also flawed
himself, also a man of good and evil in
that uh framework that they're operating
under.
>> He's just drowning in his ego at the
end. you know, his ego gets the better
of him. I think he's a but he but there
was something
flawed but beautiful in his idealism
when he was younger and that's mostly
off camera but and then just you know
always been as an individual I've always
been very susceptible to charming people
>> and he's charming and so I always kind
of I can see how people get captivated
by charming people and and the idea here
was a a very charming person and the
roads run out for him. I personally am
afraid of
how much I love human beings and how
susceptible I am to charm and charisma.
>> Yeah.
>> Cuz it can cloud your judgment about
human nature
>> completely. And that's what he that's
what's happened with him. And it it
ended up clouding his judgment about
himself. He kind of fell for his own
rubbish.
>> Yeah. But also it clouded Arthur's
judgment.
>> Oh, completely. Arthur was completely,
you know, platonically in love with him.
He was worshiping him. He'd given up his
power to him. And then I think for
Arthur, the journey is retaking that
power in the moment of dying. You know,
that's what that's what I thought that
was really interesting. Yeah, it's truly
tragic for Arthur to be losing his
identity, lifelong identity and the
sense of belonging and losing his life
at the same time in facing the
mortality. He is realizing that he's not
all of it has been a lie.
>> But he gets to do some well depends on
what the choices you make but he gets to
do some good.
>> Yes. And so he, you know, he gets his
moment of redemption
>> just a little bit. But realizing your
whole life
>> you've been living not a good life. Yes.
>> You've been not a good man.
>> It's not we're all afraid of
>> I guess it's never too late to change
your ways.
>> Uh so the biggest most important
question
uh primary central to the reason we're
talking today uh the number one question
from the internet it is so ridiculous
but I must asked. Have you seen Gavin?
Who is Gavin? So, for more context,
there's a guy named Nigel in Red Dead
Redemption 2 who's frantically searching
for a mystery man named Gavin throughout
the game. This has become one of the
biggest mysteries amongst the Interwebs,
the RDR fan base. So, the theories
include theory one is it's a split
personality disorder. Nigel himself is
Gavin. Uh so the evidence is the letter
for this theory that has some evidence
that maybe due to trauma the split
personality disorder was created. This
Gavin was created inside Nigel's mind.
Uh theory two is Gavin is dead and Nigel
is simply in denial. Theory three is
that it's just a troll and Rockstar
intentionally created an unsolvable
mystery to drive players crazy. I also
heard uh theory 4 is Gavin is the
strange man. So there's this uh
fascinating character the strange man
this supernatural character that has a
presence in RDR1 and a little bit in
RDR2 also.
>> Yeah. So uh which which theory is
closest to the truth?
>> Not three or four. Somewhere in my mind
somewhere between one and two.
>> Yeah. And I I just love the way he
shouted Gavin. It just amused me. So, at
some level, it probably is trolling in
that we didn't want it to be a totally
clear mystery.
>> You wanted it to have a little bit of
adventure to it. Um,
but it was meant to be without ever
fully being explained that Gavin's not
there anymore. Gavin's either gone home,
Gavin's left him, Gavin's uh, and we
were going to keep exploring that idea.
He was going to reappear in some way or
other. Did you have any idea how much uh
imagination, excitement, and curiosity
that little interaction would inspire in
people?
>> Yes and no. I mean, you never know what
people are going to find amusing in
these big games. And a lot of it comes
down to acting as well. The guy was just
funny when he said Gavin. It was just
funny, you know. But there was a ped in
Red Dead Redemption one that everyone
was obsessed by. And I really wasn't
expecting that. So, we try and put a few
characters in. I mean, Gavin was
supposed to be amusing. I thought he was
amusing. Um, but you never know what's
what people get obsessed by. There are
characters I think are funny and people
don't even notice them, you know, or
they see them in a completely different
way.
>> Did you have a part in writing the
letter?
>> Yeah, I can't remember if I wrote it or
I either I wrote it or Mike wrote it or
we both wrote it. I really can't
remember to be honest with you, but
yeah, I certainly would have edited it
and Mike might have written it or I
might have written it. I really can't
remember. It's so fascinating because
that little piece of writing and of
course you have thousands of pages that
little piece of writing gets like
analyzed.
>> Oh, but we certainly talked about it in
in depth and uh if Mike was here I'd ask
it. I he might remember I can't we do so
much of those things and I loved the use
of letters in Red Dead to tell all these
weird backstories and some became very
clear and some were still a little kind
of opaque.
>> But the general vibe was there was no
Gavin. either there was no Gavin or we'd
long since left. So, it's kind of a
split personality, you know, and then we
were going to over subsequent games that
provide more information. So, in some
sense, you yourself don't quite know.
You're kind of an idea. So, he could
like like which way do you lean more,
theory one or two? Is he dead and the
guy and and Nigel's in denial or is
there real communication going inside
his head?
>> No, Gavin existed. So, it wasn't that he
was a split personality and and the the
only thing we hadn't really decided was
in a future game, were we going to
reveal that Gavin was dead or was Gavin
going to turn up having long since
abandoned this maniac? You know, that
was what we're still playing around
with. I think the idea was that he was
never going to meet he was never going
to meet Gavin in this game.
>> Uh, it's just it's just fascinating
because you have to think about all of
that. You have to write all of that. You
have to have those discussions. You have
to have those debates
>> and it has to feel fresh. That was like
what we've done before. Constantly
looking as you do, you know, I think I
did, you know, somewhere between 15 and
20 of these games. Got to do stuff
that's new. It can't repeat itself too
much.
>> I mean, we also live in the age of the
internet just like you realize there's
like millions of people
worrying about where and who Gavin is.
>> Thank God. It's like it's fascinating
that they're having is you think about
people reading like James Joyce or
something
>> and thinking about the charact like
breaking apart Ulisses and thinking
about like arguing about different
interpretations of it and to me that in
itself is also beautiful.
>> Yeah. We want the side mysteries to be
solvable up to a point but you still
want you want these discussions.
>> Yeah. you know, you want as long as it
feels
>> tonally appropriate for this whole big
sort of shaggy dog story experience
you're making.
>> It's Gavin was just about and he was so
weird and it just was intrinsically just
something funny about an English person
screaming Gavin. I don't know why.
>> Yeah, some of that humor. I mean there
there's that there there there's
certainly in Red Dead Redemption there's
humor but there's a lot of in Grand
Theft Auto and what it's hard to put
into words
why that's funny why it becomes meme why
it becomes viral because it's just
funny. It's
>> I know why I think it's funny but I what
you can't what I'm not good at doing at
least is going this thing will become
really popular online and this other
thing won't. Yeah,
>> you can create this bunch of, you know,
50 different side things that people
might get captivated by and you just do
not know what they're going to respond
to.
>> How do you know when something's funny?
Is it you just feel it?
>> I know what I think is funny is, you
know, Google just because it's
ridiculous as well. That was just
there's nothing funny about a dude
shouting Gavin a lot. He just said it in
a I just thought it might be funny and
he just said it in such a funny way and
then it just became funny. Like you we
often have those side characters and
they're not that funny and I think
they're going to be hysterical and then
you put them in the game and they're
they're fine but they're not amazing.
That guy just brought that stuff to
life.
>> Yeah. And there's a backstory too. I
mean Londoner and not
>> Yeah. That was what you know just
there's something sometimes fun. You
know an English person saying the name
Gavin is quite
>> I don't know why.
>> So about the strange man aka the man of
black. Is there some element with
Michael and the therapist in Grand Theft
Auto 5? Like who is the strange man?
>> Well, the strange man was again was was
was someone we came up with quickly. it
it we made Red Dead 1 and we well were
making Red Dead one and we'd made this
we felt quite compelling story and quite
interesting open world but and we would
we'd already made a bunch of Grand Theft
Autos obviously but unfortunately we'
taken out the machine guns cuz it was a
cowboy game apart from the big fixed
position ones and we taken out the cars
and we taken out the city and large
numbers of pedestrians so we essentially
had a game about a dude riding a horse
around the desert
>> and it was quite And it was quite
boring. And so we were we then started
filling it with content. And we filled
it with these and having to improvise.
And we filled it with these things we
called random events that would be the
sort of mocap moments that you could
interact with. And it was they they were
they were the designers did an amazing
job at those. They were really fun. Um
but there was not enough of them. And
then we felt we needed more story
because the story was perhaps a little
short. So we kind of quite late in
development started putting in almost
like these RPG type content where you go
and meet someone and the way we thought
of them was they were like short
stories. So you go and meet someone
they'd set you a slow problem like go
and collect me 15 bunches of flowers and
when you came came back it would resolve
your story.
>> Mhm.
>> And so you go and get them for my bride
and you come back and the bride's dead.
You know we tried to make them like
these short stories with a sting in the
tail. and
he came out as I was trying to come up
with ideas for those as just this weird
character and then we built him a bit
into the story where he would unlock as
you worked your way through and be a
commentary on what you were doing. So he
was meant to be a kind of
manifestation of your,
you know, shadow, your karma, the devil
somewhere, you know, just saw the world
and then we built out his backstory over
time. Um, and decide, you know, so in
Red Dead 2, you could interact with him
again and or not really interact with
him, but he was there and he was meant
to be, you know, something I suppose any
creative is scared of an artist who's
kind of sold his soul to the devil. Mhm.
>> And that slowly revealed itself.
>> There is a connection between the the
main character and the is it like a Yian
shadow type of situation?
>> Well, it's sort of because he knows what
you're up to. The connection is and and
what's never really made clear is does
he know this about everybody? Like is he
following you or is he able because of
the pact he's made with with with with
with evil forces able to do this for
everybody? And I don't think we
necessarily ever clarify that. He's
certainly able to do it for you. I mean,
there's so narrative wise, there's
techniques to
reveal a kind of self-reflection
analysis of the main character's
thoughts. I mean, that's why I brought
up the therapist with Michael. That was
a really powerful interesting thing to
do in the video game. Like, I don't
think I've seen that. That's such a cool
I mean, there's a Sopranos element there
with a therapist. Yeah. I really love an
opportunity for a character to just
self-reflect through that technique.
>> It also changed depending what you'd
done.
>> Yes.
>> So, it was it was sort of slightly it
wasn't as interactive as it could be,
but it was slightly interactive or
slightly responsive to what you'd done.
So, I felt it was still valid video game
content cuz it was living up to a point.
And I just thought the character Dr.
Freedellander was just funny because he
was awful. So, it was like LA. You're in
therapy. It's very LA, but he's also
very LA. he wants to write a book and
betray you, which felt like a good a
good twist. And it was he felt like a
Grand Theft Auto therapist,
>> but
just like the idea of making the player
in a game, and games are intrinsically
kind of physical and you know, you you
walk, you you punch things, you run
around, you drive cars, you shoot
people, whatever. This these kind of
physical fantasies. Trying to put them
into a slightly more reflective or
metaphysical state for a moment, I think
can be really fun. I think to me one of
the most surprising things about Red
Dead Redemption about video games that
Red Dead Redemption showed is how much
value for storytelling is insanely
specific intricate details
in the story but also visually. It just
added to the the feeling
uh that the world is real. Uh, so I have
to ask what what are some of your um
favorite insanely specific intricate
details in in RDR? I give you some
options. Uh, internet's favorite is
horse testicle shrinking in cold
weather.
>> Those guys did an amazing job on those.
>> Yeah, I mean I just and there must have
been a meeting and there must have been
been engineers
and and graphics designers.
>> Just artists, moders. I think I don't
think it was that hard.
Okay,
>> for that pun.
>> Uh, thank you. Thank you for that.
Arthur's hair and beard grow in real
time.
>> Mhm.
>> So, gun maintenance matters. Firearms
get dirty and perform worse over time.
Uh, animal carcasses decompose
realistically.
>> They feel like they do.
>> That's still extremely rare in video
games that that the temporal aspect.
>> Yes.
>> That permeates through time. You know,
NPCs remembering you.
>> That's the best. I mean, that's thing I
love it.
playing around with a lot of stuff in
the new games around that. I think it's
super interesting
>> to make them Yeah. really interesting. I
think the the
>> it just it's a really fun way of giving
you kind of narrative content that is
also systemic and procedural.
>> Yeah. Is it technically really difficult
to do for for the game for the game to
feel like it remembers you? Um, I think
with modern tech it's not that hard, but
there's a lot of stuff you need to track
to make it interesting.
>> Yeah. To have a memory. So, that's
really powerful. Uh, the mud physics.
Uh, so Arthur's boots get muddy and
leave actual tracks. I mean, that's just
incredible. Really, really incredible.
>> You know, we made the dusty game. Red
Dead one is a super dusty game. make,
you know, the problem with
cowboys is that if you've tried to make
a greatest hits of the cowboy game and
then you've got to make a sequel, you've
got to come up with different
geographies. So that's why the game
starts in the snow. So we wanted a game
that had snow and mud because those were
things you hadn't really seen in Red
Dead 1. And then the challenge is how do
you make mud good in the game? And it
guys did an amazing job. I mean, this
the snowstorm that starts the game RGR2,
I don't remember the last time I've
experienced anything like it, but you
felt it. I don't know how the hell you
do that. It's not just graphics, it's
everything. Everything together. I
suppose some of the the dialogue is
really important.
>> The acting they feel they feel calm.
>> Yeah, that's right.
>> And they feel desperate. That was that
feeling of sort of
>> exodus like you're running away from
something that gives the game sort of
energy at the start.
>> And it was at night. Oh man, it was just
me. a big group of them. The other, you
know, first game you start off as a lone
wolf. Suddenly, you're in this big
group. So, it felt very different.
>> In Arthur's body, bullet wounds persist.
So, that that temporal consistency
that's really important. And then
underweight Arthur looks gone. And uh
overweight Arthur gets a gut and fuller
face. Again, those like decisions that
you make
reveal themselves in the game across
time and they're consistent. I don't
know. I did not see many games do that.
this it must be difficult to do but to
to give that level of care to the
details in that way across time and for
specific graphical representations of
things is incredible.
>> Yeah.
>> Do you have do you have favorites
where where you were first like this is
this is amazing.
>> I think all of I think the way the whole
to me the thing that I would care about
most was the way the whole thing sat
together. You know, the fact that each
of those they all feel like they belong
together with each other. You made this
cohesive, very, you know, quote unquote
realistic for a video game experience
and all the details feel like they mesh.
>> Well, for me, everything about the horse
for a lot of people,
>> testicle shrinking included.
>> What's the process of deciding this? The
internet seems to really care about I
mean they love the game so much so they
want to know if anything was cut and I'm
sure stuff was cut because you you have
to choose.
>> Mhm.
>> What's the process of deciding what to
cut? What the cut scenes like? Is is
there any scenes that you had to let go
of uh that you really miss or wish you
could have done in uh either GTA or RDR?
>> Well, I think the games ended up the way
they were supposed to be.
>> Yeah. You know, I think there was always
there was a bit at the start of RDR
where he'd had a baby who just died in
Red Dead 2 and we ended up cutting it,
which uh was the right decision. It was
too
tough in some ways, but I think it gave
him real and he was not very sympathetic
to his occasional girlfriend who'd had
the baby. And so it made him very very
nasty at the start which I thought would
be interesting to play around with
because then it would make his
redemptive arc even more interesting.
Like he was not a likable character at
the start and that was one and we ended
up making him slightly more like he's
still sort of tough and nasty but he's
slightly more likable early on. That was
the right decision
commercially. It's better that way. But
I you know but I still I like that
little bit. Um it spoke to me
personally. um
there and and just his in inability to
access his emotions I thought was really
strong cuz then later in the game he's
get very emotional but there's also
always little bits and pieces that get
trimmed you know and um and and don't
well missions that just are not going to
work technically usually it's like this
mission is not going to work technically
oh god we got to cut it okay how do we
glue the story back together and we got
better over time at gluing the story
across missing chunks you get late in
the game and it's just something you
know, some big challenging moment just
is going to look rubbish, so you just
get rid of it.
>> I think editing
editing film and I imagine editing video
games, editing down is is is an art
form, but it's also just it feels like
torture because you're letting go of
things you put so much love into.
>> Yeah, it I mean changes, you know, if
you fall in love with something and
everyone else goes, "Let's change it."
That could be, of course, that would be
upsetting in some ways, otherwise you
wouldn't care about it. But, you know,
if I was over involved in the big
creative thing and he go, "Okay, it's
the right decision. I can probably live
with that fine." I think sometimes for
designers when they're only designing
four or five missions in the whole game
and two of them get cut, that must be
really, really hard.
>> Is there DLC's like for RDR or GTA that
you wish you had the time when you were
uh there to have created?
>> Of course. There's always things I wish
I'd done. I always wish I'd done more.
>> What would you have added? This is a fun
like nerding out.
>> We the internet knows we made a DLC,
single player DLC for GTA 5 that never
came out. And we've also never really
worked on another game, but I like the
idea of it that was a GTA zombie game.
That would have been funny. I think that
could have been quite fun.
>> What was the GTA 5 DLC?
>> It was one when you played as Trevor,
but he was a secret agent.
>> Oh,
>> it was it was cute. It was It never
quite came together and it was never
finished. It was about half done when it
got a man. But I think if that had come
out, probably wouldn't have got to make
Red Dead 2. So there's always there's
always compromises, but it was, you
know, I like making the stories. For me,
I love the model of GTA 4 when you had
the extra stories coming afterwards or
Red Dead one when you had the zombie
pack coming afterwards. I like just
doing these extra things. So I would I
would I personally like to have done
more of that in that company. Um, and
with stuff we're doing in the future,
we're gonna try and come up with worlds
where we can add more stories. I like
single player DLC. I just think the
audience loves it and it's really fun to
make.
>> Does it make you a little bit sad that
the gaming industry in general is moving
towards more online, less single player
DLC? Maybe that observation is
incorrect, but it feels at the at at
this moment to me it feels like uh it's
easier to make a lot of money with
online
>> if you get it right.
>> If you get it right and so the gaming
companies are reaching for that
and it just makes me really sad because
there's so much power to the what you
did with Red Dead Redemption 2. I don't
know how during that time you're able to
pull that off, but that was like a
breath of fresh air or in a time where
everybody was moving to online and there
was that huge incentive to that. You you
go on and draw again the greatest
narrative in video game history and the
greatest character in video game
history, single player. We still love
single player games. And I think as we
started up absurd, we did a lot of
soulsearching.
>> Yeah. and and also a lot of like cynical
looking at looking at what goes well in
the industry. Luckily, if you want to do
what we're forced to do and also what I
want to do, which is make new IP, you
need single player games. You can launch
a a multiplayer game as a as a with new
IP. It's just extremely hard. So,
luckily, we are like focusing on what
we're good at, which is open world
single player games. And we might add um
multiplayer components to one of them.
them. I think one of them it's going to
be really tough later on, but we're
still thinking that through. But I think
we're really leaning into the single
player experience um as being a strength
for us as a company and something we
love to do and I think something a large
part of the audience prefers and I'd
love to with all of those keep single
player DLC one way or another going.
>> Were there some other game ideas you
considered while at Rockstar and uh
afterwards
they you didn't go with? So like worlds,
I don't know, pirate games. I mean, what
I would love to see the no possible
options.
>> Never thought a lot about a pirate game.
>> My son is is obsessed by that game Sea
of Thieves at the moment. So he's
constantly saying, "Do a pirate game.
Haven't really thought about it too
much." We worked a lot on multiple
iterations of an open world spy game.
>> Yeah.
>> And it never came together.
>> It's the agent
>> agent in It's had about five different
iterations.
>> So good.
>> I don't think it works. I concluded I'm
and I keep thinking about it sometimes.
I sometimes lie in bed thinking about it
and I've concluded as an open as what
makes them really good
as film stories makes them not work as
video games or need to think through how
to do it in a different way as a video
game.
>> So uh for people who don't know it would
be hypothetically set in 1970s cold war
era.
>> That was one of the versions. There was
another one that was set in current. We
had so many different versions of this
game. We worked on so many different
teams,
>> but it would be more geopolitical like
espionage
>> that Yeah.
>> assassinations. Yeah. Assassinations. I
don't know what it would have been
because it never really we never got it
enough to even doing a proper story on
it. We're doing the early work as you
get the world up and running. It never
it never really found its feet in either
of the
>> And I sort of think I know why
>> because one of those films they're very
very frenetic and they beat to beat to
beat. you know, you've got to go here
and save the world. You got to go there
and stop that person being killed and
then save the world. And an open world
game does have moments like that when
the story comes together, but for large
portions, it's a lot kind of looser and
you're just hanging out and you're just
doing what you want and I want freedom
and I want to go over here and do what I
want and I want to go over and do what
you want. And that's why it works well
being a criminal because you
fundamentally don't have anyone telling
you what to do. Um, and we try and
create, you know, external agency
through these people kind of forcing you
into the story at times, but as a spy
that doesn't really work because you
have to be against the clock. So, I
think for me, I'm I question if you can
even make a good open world spy game.
>> So, interesting. So, you have to be able
to ride around the car and listen to the
radio
>> and cruise about
>> or ride ride a horse and just look at
nature.
>> So, lots of things would work as open
world games, but I don't know if
spiders. That's brilliantly put, but to
me there's such a espionage and
assassinations and the geopolitical
international context is so interesting.
But you're right.
>> I just want to listen to uh what is it?
Llo and uh
>> well, you can't you got to save the
world and so you need this time pressure
>> with a Russian accent or something.
Yeah. Wow. Wow. Yeah, that's really
interesting. And then we played around
with a knights concept that was looked,
you know, knights and and sort of trying
to do a a version of of ath mythological
game that could have been fun and, you
know, still love that idea, but never
went very far with it.
>> Nights would be going really far back in
history.
>> Yeah, I would have to
never got to writing any of it. Just did
some backstory and played around with a
few ideas, but it was uh there was
always something I thought I would never
do and then kind of fell in love with it
a little bit.
You left Rockstar in 2020 and eventually
launched Absurd Ventures as we've been
talking about. What do you miss about
your time at Rockstar? Is there specific
moments that bring you joy when you
think about them?
>> Of course. It was my whole, you know, it
was my life for 20
something years, 21 years or something.
>> Yeah,
>> it was uh and I moved to America to do
it and grew up doing it and I was always
living in in New York. It was a at times
very intense and at other times magical
experience, but it was also just a huge
chunk of my life.
>> The lows and the highs
>> and the middles. It was just it was just
my life, you know, my life was that job
and the people I knew in New York and
and and my family and it and we were
doing something that was intense and
innovative and and you know both loved
and hated by by wider society in
different ways and at different times
and in this weird company that was
constantly in trouble. So it was it was
really fun.
>> Just even looking back at that time to
today, um how did you evolve as a
creative mind across those 20 years?
Well, I was a child. I was a 25-year-old
childh
>> who didn't know anything and I wanted to
be a writer, but I still wasn't writing.
And I bought a notebook and I'd
occasionally scribble in it and I still
got those notebooks somewhere. And I was
working in video games, which were the
least literary medium it's possible to
imagine at the time. There was no room
for that on PS1 games really.
um thinking I needed to stop and do
something else but not having the skills
or the confidence to do it. And I'd been
doing that in London. Then I came to New
York and it was fun, really fun to be in
New York and really fun to do a new
company in New York and that was an
amazing adventure, but I was still lost
as a human being. And then um when I was
27, I still completely lost a child and
I uh stopped some of my bad behavior and
the next day uh pretty much the chance
to write on work on open world games and
all the skills I'd halflearned over the
previous years and my way of thinking or
I thought about space a lot because I
was a geographer rather than a historian
uh came together and I got the chance to
work on open world games. So it felt
like it was meant to be. It was fun to
explore, but really fun to explore with
this team that was, you know, Alex
Horton and Naveiv and Leslie and the
guys in Scotland and all the people in
in New York making these new games in
this new way and and going, "Oh, we need
to find a hundred voices. Why? We've got
no money. How the hell are we going to
do that? We'll get everyone's friends in
and just record all lines of dialogue
each as we kind of would invent the way
that pedestrians would speak in video
games." No one else was doing that kind
of stuff. It was insane. So I think that
that period from kind of 2001 2005 it
was lots of early innovation and and
felt really exciting because we were
doing new stuff. It didn't feel it felt
creative but it didn't feel like writing
yet just becoming that. It felt lots of
doing lots of creative things and
learning how to assemble the stuff and
learning what it could take. And then I
think we talked about it earlier, but
the the journey into doing GTA 4 when it
began to feel more like a proper writing
experience. And I was kind of probably
ready for that at that point. And then I
was like, well, this is better than
films. This is something that films
can't do. You know, this 360°
experience of being this immigrant. And
it still felt we were still only
scratching the surface. I mean it still
feels like that now in some ways but it
still and then that five games you know
GTA
four and five Red Dead 1 and two all the
extra packs for them and Max Pain 3 I
think we took the games thematically
into new places through that period from
a writing perspective that was the most
exciting period from a from a business
and and and sort of early creativity
period the period 2001 to 2005 was
probably the most exciting you original
starting team we're all doing Well, you
know, personal life was doing okay.
Didn't feel like such a mess. And then
um and then from 2007 onwards, 78 was
happy personally. Um having children,
happily married,
and the games were just getting much
better, but there were lots of pressure
in the business, you know, it was just
and the budgets got really big, so that
is other stress. So there's always
always good bits and stresses, but you
know, and always just tried to
sharp and do my best and and think about
how I could do it in a new way. Always
trying to go, it's a new medium. What
can we do that's new?
>> But as a writer, as a
scholar of human nature, first of all,
were you surprised that we actually you
were actually able like you had it in
you through humor and tragedy to create
these incredibly compelling characters?
Because I I think I remember reading
somewhere that James Joyce when he was
20 said that he's going to be the
greatest writer ever. And I I feel like
every 20year-old says this. It's just
James Joyce pulls it off.
>> Yes.
>> So were you were you surprised that you
were actually able to do it? And how did
that person get better and better and
better at writing as you evolved?
>> The team got better and better so we
could write in a more ambitious way. the
the animation got better so we could
support it in a better way. We could go
deeper like you couldn't go that deep on
a PS2 game. So it was also just the
technology evolved. Um
I don't know. I felt like I felt like I
was good at doing it and and and well
trained for it and I'd been in the right
place at the right time and I was both
lucky and had a in a way of thinking
about characters that when you reduce
them to about 10 sentences was amusing.
You know, I think I was, you know, and
it was and I saw the world in a holistic
way and and saw society in a holistic
way that you could break apart into an
open world video game. I was, you know,
I thought about it a bunch. The way I
think about things was suitable for that
for whatever reason. Just that was just
good fortune.
>> Lzel mentioned that uh was another
legend who you're still working with.
>> Uh he mentioned that you would uh lock
yourself in writing dialogue for radio.
I think you lock yourself in a room and
get anchovies and onion pizza and
crushed eye cokes. Is this accurate
information?
>> Very accurate.
>> For which periods of your life was this
a fuel
>> for your creative process? Is anchovies
and onion pizza?
>> I would also get pepperoni on my half
just to be technically accurate. He
wouldn't cuz he claimed to be a
vegetarian in those days, but then he'd
admit to me he kept chicken wings hidden
in the freezer.
>> Yeah.
>> So it was a sort of fake vegetarian.
that was or I think we still do it now
sometimes as sort of memorialize but
that began in 2001
>> and we the we the office at Rockstar was
so small and we were so broke that there
was no and I I did have a private office
at the time but it genuinely was a
cupboard.
>> It didn't have a window. I was literally
sitting in a cupboard. Um so there was
no room and I could had a desk and a
chair just for myself. So we but I lived
quite near the office so we would write
one or two afternoons a week. He'd come
in. He was a freelancer working with us.
He'd come in from Long Island and then
we would jump on the subway, go to my
apartment in Chelsea and sit in this
grimy little apartment I was living in
and buy pizza from around the corner and
that became and you know we both like
Diet Coke and pizza um very video game
developer and that became good luck and
uh we'd have these good writing sessions
we realized we got on well with each
other and that we had a similar sense of
humor and we could write the stuff and
then he would do all the real work
producing it. So it was perfect for me
because I got to outsource most of the
real work and he's a brilliant radio
producer. Um so he was a great partner
in that way and then that was how that
relationship began and then I'd get him
I say well we've got to record these 80
voices come and help me cuz I can't
direct 80 people at once. So he helped
with that process and he was a really
good producer like audio like getting
bodies in producer as well as technical
producer. So it was just that was the
beginning of that relationship and it
was always my job was to ensure the
media content felt like it reflected the
tone of the world and we would write it
together. Then his job was just to make
sure it sounded funny like he would just
produce in a really funny way.
>> Just to give a little bit more of a
shout out to Llo. What's it been like
working with him for over 20 years? He's
working with you still. He's a kind of
>> this uh flamboyant, colorful
personality,
much loved for being a voice also on
radio in the in the Grand Theft Auto
games.
>> Yeah. And the rule was when he was the
character, I would write the first pass
of him. So I would and I would get
nastier and nastier over time. So to the
point where he's having his head shaved
and, you know, being punished by
everybody. Even in game after game he
got wor he he began as his quite in GTA
3 he's a quite likable character and
then you know over the next 12 13 years
it just got worse and worse so I think
he's glad not to be doing that anymore
but he did it with great grace. He's
just a great partner because he likes he
like you know like me we just like
making stuff. He likes to make stuff. He
likes to work in new spaces. He's been a
great help on bringing the comic book to
life doing a lot of the work on that.
He's working on that right now. Um, and
just he's he's really fun to work with
and he's, you know, always will put
creativity first
and he's ridiculous, you know, sort of
in the best possible way. Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Outside of uh the games you've
participated in, created, um, what do
you think are some candidates for the
greatest game of all time?
>> Tetris.
>> Tetris Game Boy. No question.
>> Tetris and a Game Boy. Yeah,
>> it was the perfect device for playing
that game. I never liked as much or
anything else. My wife was trying to get
a retro one for my kids, trying to get
them for Christmas right now. Um, it was
the most addicted I ever was to anything
in my life of far too many addictions.
That was obsessed by it, dreaming about
it. And when you link two together with
the cable and if I got four, it would
push yours forward. I was like, perfect
game design. So, from a pure
puzzle perspective, nothing comes close.
>> Yeah. It's extremely simple.
>> Yeah. Pure gameplay, no narrative,
>> no no nothing. No, no personality at
all. It's a completely different thing,
>> but but perfect in it way. Open world
games can't be that perfect.
>> Yeah,
>> but you always dreamed of making
something like that.
>> Super Mario,
>> I think the N64 ones,
>> all of those early 3D games were very
amazing when you first saw them
>> on the N64, PS1. when you went it
suddenly was like these games they were
alive in a or they're believable in a
different way. I think that was very
interesting.
>> It looks unlike anything else.
>> Nintendo has that look, doesn't it?
Always.
>> Yeah. And I think that's the they're
known for this Nintendo polish that
every pixel has a purpose.
>> Yes.
>> And what I mean I suppose Tetris has
that same real focus on delivering the
pure gaming experience with as little as
possible. It's really beautiful. Of
course, Zelda really pioneered a lot of
sort of the feeling of of a world, but
it's not quite open.
>> No, but it's amazing. It's almost like
the new ones, they almost to me feel
like Hitchcock. They just speaking the
language of video games, you know, like
you know everything's going to work this
way and that way. It's it's quite
systemic, but it's so how it all glues
together is so amazing. It feels like
when you watch a Hitchcock film, it's
not reality. He's speaking the language
of cinema in a very very strong with a
very strong accent almost. It's very
very cinematic. It's not realism at all.
And that's what those Zelda games kind
of feel to me like they are these
amazing things that could only be video
games. They couldn't be anything else.
>> For me, another really powerful open
world is the the Elder Squirrels world.
It's role playing. It's uh fantasy,
dragons, all that kind of stuff.
>> Todd is great at what he does. Yeah,
>> there's they're slightly they're more
>> I mean from a technical perspective
we're always involved I same with the
with the new games we're constantly
trying to find the balance between you
know RPG
a role playing game and an action game
and an you know and try go well an
action adventure game with RPG elements
and what does that mean and I think
they've all kind of moved into roughly
the same space but for me it always just
comes down to our is easy to play. Are
our mechanics super slick? And then can
we keep our dialogue feeling very alive?
Like I'm not always a great
for just for what we do. I like when
other people do it. For what we do, we
always want very punchy dialogue. So
don't give big trees,
>> but still have it interactive. So we're
going we're going to lose a touch of
interactivity, but we'll still have the
dialogue feeling like it's alive, but
we'll get better written dialogue and it
feel more a slightly more cinematic
experience. Yeah, I think uh the Elder
Scrolls series have almost always leaned
a little more towards the open world.
>> Yes. They're real RPGs. Yeah.
>> You know, we've not re the games that,
you know, I've worked on, they've not
really been RPGs. They've had RPG
elements onto a story-driven action
game. It's a kind of just a slightly
different emphasis, but I still think
what they do is amazing. He's brilliant
at doing it. And I I I think Grand Theft
Auto, Red Dead Redemption, and Skyrim
are games where you have millions of
people that just walk around or drive
around
>> and feel the world.
>> Feel the world. Just feel the world.
>> And the Witcher, same thing.
>> And uh Balders's Gate 1, 2, and three.
Really interesting. They really tried to
make every choice you make genuinely
branched the game to where it's not the
illusion of choice. It's really It
really choice really does something
>> and that's really hard to pull off
technically.
>> Yes. And hard to pull off. You're always
sort of debating the the sweet spot
between that and a strong story,
>> you know, and strong mechanics. It's
hard to get them all and you you you
know, as a as a as a a game- making
team, the whole you know, the teams kind
of have to figure out where they want to
fall on that line.
>> A difficult topic. Uh, you dedicated the
book to your mom and dad and in
particular you wrote to my father who
died while I was finishing the book.
What have you learned about life from
your dad? To show up, to be present, to
go to work every day, to love
creative things. you know, he was a
lawyer, but he was also a jazz musician.
And he did both to the best of his
abilities, you know, and that to value
family as
more important than either of those
things,
you know, he was a present guy,
I think, and and you know, he loved
books. Always loved books. always loved
but loved films, loved m music, didn't
wasn't into video games, but liked that
we were doing weird things.
>> Was he proud of you?
>> Yeah, I think so. I hope so. And he was
he was for for a lawyer,
he really venerated
at some level giving the man the the the
quote unquote the man the finger. like,
you know, whenever life goes crazy,
>> he just was always on the side of the
underdog and the ridiculous. And and I
think that, you know,
he always wanted to answer people back,
always give the silly comment. And I
certainly, you know, taken that from him
to my detriment probably, but it makes
life more fun. Like he always would just
say the obnoxious thing and just didn't
give a And that was uh, you know,
I think that was probably quite
inspiring.
>> So you have a bit of that in you.
Fortunately, so yes, not good at
shutting up, not good at towing the
line.
>> I think I speak for most of human
civilization that fortunately
you have that as part of as part of who
you are because it it comes through your
stories. I think it made school
difficult.
You know, they sent me this very formal
school that was like it might as well
have been set in the 1870s, in the
1990s. And but then they want, you know,
I was always getting in trouble just for
not not for doing anything that wrong,
just answering teachers back all of the
time. Couldn't be quiet.
How often do you think about mortality?
Are you personally yourself afraid of
death?
>> Well, my father passed away
in May,
so
a lot more since then, obviously. Um, I
mean, I think about a lot. Am I afraid
of it?
I don't know. Some days intensely and
some days not at all. I would love to
stay alive long enough to see my kids
properly grow up and settled of course
for them. I don't. Aside from that, some
days I feel, you know, spiritually
connected to the universe and and and
not afraid of death at all. And other
days I feel like a sort of random piece
of of of good luck who's uh going to get
struck down by an angry fate and turn to
nothingness. And that terrifies me. I
just
>> What do you think about the nothingness?
I mean that that in itself is
terrifying.
>> Yeah, that is terrifying. I mean I I I
tend to
I I tend to you know spent
long periods of my life tormented by
that stuff. the the last few years I
tend to believe there is a purpose and a
point to life and that we have some kind
of
spiritual or soul-based existence. Not
I'm not quite sure if it matters if
there is a god or not. We should
probably live our lives the same way
either way. Um but I tend to think that
that you know there is a metaphysical
purpose to life and part of the that
purpose is to you know search for the
purpose but at other points you can get
you know you read too much science you
get wrapped up in the nothingness of it
all.
>> Also there's a component to uh to your
brain uh when talking about weathering
heist by Emily Bronte. You said that you
have been by fortune struck with a bit
of a capacity for the grandiosity of
feeling. So, you feel the world deeply,
sometimes romantic, sometimes overly
romantic. You've uh said, I like this
line, feelings may destroy you, but
they're the best thing we have. So, uh
that ability to feel the world, is that
a gift or a curse for you? What do you
think?
>> That's a really interesting question
because it's obviously both. You know,
at times it's both or times it's one or
the other. when things are going well,
when you feel alive, when you feel like
you're connected to things, when you're
seeing
beauty in people and and joy and
experiences. Of course, it's it's it's
wonderful when you're feeling like, you
know, bereft and set a drift by the
world and that you can't connect it to
it in some way and you're lost and
abandoned by
God or consciousness or fate or whatever
it is. It's awful. You know, when I feel
like
a dreadful hack, which is most of the
time, you know, it's terrible. You
rather not be doing this rubbish. And
then sometimes you're working creatively
and it feels good and you feel like
you're doing the right thing and it
feels fantastic.
>> But that's not very often.
>> Do you think it's possible to have one
without the other?
>> No.
>> Yeah.
>> No, of course not. When I think about
growing up to the extent that I am
capable of growing up, um it is about
accepting the bad with the good from any
situation or any aspect of myself. You
know, going okay, it's not perfect or
I'm not perfect.
>> Uh you said you often feel like a hack.
Is that that self-critical part of your
brain
is that a feature or a bug? That's an I
think it's the the new thing that we're
going to lean into the bug feature.
>> Yeah,
>> it's both, isn't it? I mean, it's it's
it cannot lead that self-critical brain.
I think lots of people suffer from and
and I think the internet is designed to
induce. If you didn't have it before,
you will have it after being online. Um,
it's clearly can become a bug, but it
also can give you drive and a lack of
complacency. So, it can can also become
a feature.
I had a pretty uh intense argument with
Paul Ki who's a legendary psychiatrist,
student of the mind about this. Um he
worked with many famous creative people
and he he thinks that that negative
voice is not at all needed for creative
genius and I thought I know awfully a
lot of creative people that have that
voice. I'd rather not have it, but I
certainly have lived with it this far
that there's a danger that negativity
for me that negativity and consciousness
become the same thing, you know, and
sometimes have to fight to not just be
perpetually negative. Um, and that can
be part of the human struggle for lots
of people and certainly has been for me.
I think if you're trying to do, you
know, good stuff and you're reflective
inevitably and and you know, you live in
this world of constant constant
criticisms by the internet. Of course,
you know, everyone who ever puts
something on the internet, be it a
picture of themselves or any kind of
work they've made or whatever it is is
going to get 50 good comments and one
bad comment and remember the bad
comment. So that and that that becomes
fuel for the negative voice. I don't
know anyone that's strong enough not to,
you know, we, you know, some level you
should just measure that stuff in in
weight, not in not in quality. But of
course, we just focus on the quality.
>> And I do think in general as you get
older, that's a real challenge for
people. You can see the different
trajectories people choose to take. But
it's easy to slip into cynicism and
negativity into this uh dustfskis
notes from underground nihilistic kind
of worldview. I think the heroic action
to take with time is to become more
optimistic, to seem more good, to uh I
think that there's probably a hero's
journey of being extremely self-critical
at first
uh for for the the the first maybe half
of your life or twothirds of and then
while maintaining some self-critical
aspects just so you stay humble, start
to see the good uh in everything around
you, in other people in the world and
even maybe every once in a while on a
weekend in yourself.
>> I hope so. I mean, that's what I've been
I could not be more cynical. I think you
put that beautifully. I could not be
>> more cynical than I was as a child. You
know, I could not see goodness anywhere.
I I couldn't see, you know, I don't
think uh
late 1970s to early 1990s England was a
great was a place of great, you know,
optimism and naivity. It was brutal and
I was brutal. I was brutal within it.
And I think um I've become much more
naive and and and tried to become more
innocent in some ways and and always
tried to see the flawed good in people.
You know, I've tried to re and I've
had to force myself to be like that
because, you know, the other way is not
fun. It's not nice to to it's not nice
to not be nice.
Uh, as a brief aside, you had a
wonderful conversation with uh, Ryan
McAffrey at LA Comic-Con. I've been a
big fan of his for a long time. He
writes amazing stuff at IGN. He has a
great podcast. Everybody should go
listen to it. I really enjoyed it. Plus,
I got to attend a Comic- Con and just be
there in the audience. And like we were
saying offline, uh, the LA Comic- Con.
It's the first Comic- Con I've been to.
There's just all kinds of real genuine
nerds, good-hearted.
>> Oh, it's fascinating. Brilliant. It's
just so much kindness and goodness and
just simple joy in being a fan of a
thing was there.
>> Yeah. Which is what those things are all
about.
>> Yeah. Okay. So, let's talk about some of
the greatest books of all time. And I
should also give a shout out to an
excellent podcast you did with Sonia
Waler who's a friend of yours, but she
had a great podcast. She has guests pick
their five favorite most impactful books
and so on. Uh you picked five fiction
books, one for each decade of your life.
For the audience, they should go listen
to that conversation. But uh you picked
uh Winter Holiday by Arthur Ransom. Uh
second one was Withering Heights by
Emily Bronte, then Tenders the Night by
F. Scott Fitzgerald,
uh The Thin Red Line by James Jones, and
Middle March by George Elliot. But just
zooming out, reflecting back on that
conversation, what do you think if an
alien came, what are what are some
candidates for books that you'll
recommend to them?
>> Middle March, it's the best novel
written in English. War and Peace. It's
the one of the best novels written in
Russian. I would argue. I think both of
those are because if you've only got one
book, you want a long book.
>> Yeah, true. and and then they're both
books that kind of it's something I was
always trying to put into games and you
know that feeling of all of life is here
>> you know you've got love death violence
romance the whole human experience in
different ways so I think that that
there's something amazing about you know
Vanity Fair I used to used to love the
novel not the not the magazine um
because same thing all of life is here
>> you also spoke highly of Scott
Fitzgerald and Hemingway
>> I was obsessed by them in my 20ies.
Completely obsessed
>> as one must be that Asian. And I think
them as a double act is so amazing. You
know, one helped discover the other and
then died first and then suddenly it
died in in obscurity and then was
rediscovered as a genius while the other
one was still alive and falling into not
obscurity but into decline. I think it's
that that their relationship is itself
very novelistic. That that by the way is
a phenomena of writing maybe no longer
maybe still uh that you know people like
France Kofka who died in obscurity like
all these writers who died in obscurity
not nobody knows them and they become
famous later. Yeah,
>> that is just so interesting. That's such
an interesting,
you know, that France and and France
Cauquis in particular is fascinating
because he wanted all of his work to be
burnt like destroyed. So that insec
speaking of the critical voice is just
uh and I I think he's one of the one of
the best writers of the 20th century. Of
course, the dystopian novels are really
interesting. 1984
um Brave New World. love 1984. Had never
listened to it or read it and then I
think I did it on Talking Book or I
maybe read it, I can't remember during
COVID and became I think I did both.
Became obsessed by it and it's the
elements of that creeping into a better
paradise. But it's so good. I hadn't
realized how good it was. Yeah.
>> And it's so of the moment.
>> It's almost like because of his fame and
>> Yeah. it it's almost like cliche and you
think over the
>> characters and I remember the year 1984
and this is I remember the song you know
there's too much it can't be that good
and then it was that I had came to it
completely cold just oh I should get
work my way through this cuz it's
another classic I haven't read and then
it's it's incredible
>> and the book I've read more than any
other book is Animal Farm by George
Orwell I don't know why exactly but the
childlike
fairy tale telling of totalitarianism
>> well you grew up in a communist country.
Yeah, maybe that's it. The roots of it.
>> I remember, you know, I was a kid in the
Cold War in London and we were always
terrified of Eastern Europeans. You were
going to come and kill us all. And then
I I ended up marrying a pole.
>> And um and I was we we were and we had
Ukrainians, you know, who who who who
worked worked for us and worked with us.
And I was we were sitting few years ago
sitting around a campfire in upstate New
York surround with the campfire was
built by our old nanny's husband who's
Ukrainian and he'd been in the Red Army.
I was like history is so strange that
you end up the Red Army used to be the
ultimate enemy
>> and like we're now just hanging out with
everything changes. You think these you
think these things are permanent and
they're really not.
>> Yeah.
>> You know, we face some of that now where
you think these structures are permanent
and they're going to change. And you
also mentioned that the three great
World War II books are The Thin Red
Line, Life and Fate by Via Gman, and The
End of the Affair, Graham Green.
Uh, what makes for a great war book?
I think World War II
is interesting because it affects
everywhere obviously and so you can get
all these different kinds of stories and
there's so many good I was just trying
to come up with a range of one American,
one British, uh one Eastern European uh
just to get just to get different
perspectives, but there's so many
amazing World War II books around all
kinds of stories. I think the most
complete one because it is this all of
life being there probably is life and
fate which is amazing
>> and it was uh written by Vasil Gman he
experienced Stalin firsthand and there's
also just a deep philosophical component
>> and the bit intrainka is one of the most
harrowing sections of any book I ever
read and it really almost more than any
other
piece of art around the Holocaust made
me feel what you would feel like at that
moment and it's incredible piece of
humanism
>> and also just I mean Man's Search for
Meaning by Victor Franco.
>> Oh yeah.
>> It seems like that context reveals in
the most pure way human nature and like
what kind of you know in Man's Search
for Meaning is
when everything is taken from you. You
know the little remains of love
for in this case his wife. is the thing
that is a little flame that burns and
>> uh let's say the engrossment is
small acts of kindness
>> is the thing that allows the human
spirit to persist. I love the bit in
life and fate when you get obviously
it's in this Stalinist period and so the
they're all losing they all know that
the that what they thought was going to
be wonderful about the revolution isn't
going to happen. So there's a whole and
everyone's scared of being killed by
Stalin because it's post the purges, but
then you get these guys and they're
trapped in a building fighting in
Stalingrad and uh so they know at this
moment they're dead anyway and they get
to live like pure perfect Marxist
communists away from Stal and all his
nonsense. And I thought that section is
incredible because you realize like in
some ways in all of its horrors the most
disappointing thing about the 20th
century in some ways was the absolute
failure of communism. You know it was
because it was such a you know quote
unquote beautiful idea and it just did
not work time and time again. And these
people who fought for it and then saw it
not working. I think they're sort of
fascinating characters. you know, all of
the all of the revolutionaries
>> from 1917 that were then killed by
Stalin, which was all of them apart from
him him and him and Lenin. And that was
uh you know, people in modern day
politics talk about communism like it's
trivially
it's trivial that it would lead to
atrocities, but I don't think it's that
trivial. It's uh it's this idealism of
human of humans.
>> It's like why, you know, why can't
>> basically why can't we all get along?
There's a real compassion behind it.
There's real love and what you realize
is there is it's a real study the 20th
century of human nature that
unfortunately at scale that kind of
compassion uh is abused by
centralized power. So there's a dictator
always in that context in in those given
that set of technologies a dictator
arises and
does the opposite of what the the the
promise of the ideal is supposed to be.
Well, I think I thought a lot about that
then because I was taught by all these
disappointed communists, you know, after
' 89 all of these English communists,
you know, all like having to accept
discovering all these atrocities had
happened in, you know, so it was it
always fascinated me and then you think
about
complexities or where one's own values
are in the modern moment and I I say,
you know, that from from e e and whether
either of them any what we would call
left now or call right now. Does it have
any bearing on on the sort of communist
era of those words? And I would say
probably not. I think things have
changed. But fundamentally, the one
value that I would go I would think is
worth fighting for is go whenever either
side starts to move towards thought
control.
>> Move away. That's never the right
outcome. The never right outcome is, oh,
you've said the wrong thing, you should
be removed now. That should never ever
be a thing we should lean towards. Yeah,
it does seem like freedom, individual
freedom is a prerequisite
>> for happiness,
>> for happiness for and a flourishing of a
larger society. So there's, like you
said, 1984 is pretty I mean it's a
caricature,
>> but it is brilliant.
>> It's quite it's actually also just a
good story. That's my criticism of Brave
New World. It's just poorly written. But
I like Brave New World probably applies
more to the 21st century uh than does
1984. Is it? I think 1984 with the with
the fake wars
>> and the way that it revealed that
everything in it was a setup for him.
>> There's something if he could have seen
the internet
>> there's something it's like it's like an
analog internet that world they build
around uh the main character.
>> What advice would you give to a young
person today
about let's say career how to have a
career they can be proud of how they can
have a life to be proud of?
You've had a non-standard life.
>> I've had a lucky life um in which I have
fought to mess things up and fate has
always thrown me a bone.
>> You've uh traveled in South America and
had hobos chase you with machetes.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. So, that happened a poor series of
poor life decisions. Yeah. Um and I I
ran I ran away, you know. I was I mean I
ran away to South America. That was a
poor decision. I ran away from the guy
with a knife. That was a good decision.
>> Yeah.
>> Uh I came to America. That was a good
decision. Um
I ran came to LA. That's I think been a
good decision. It's been fun to see a
different side of America and um be in a
different creative environment. LA is
still amazing for creativity and
entertainment, the wider entertainment
industry stuff. I think that's been fun.
Um what would I say? I would say
when you get a chance, take it. That was
one thing I did do well at when I got
got chances. I was good at taking them.
Um, I would say do not worry too young
about your career. I would say worry
about having a rounded intellectual
inner life because you're going to spend
the whole of your life in your own head.
So the more interesting you find your
own head, the more interesting you find
the world, the less you're going to
annoy yourself. So I would say I would I
would say do not do a vocational degree
as an undergraduate. That's been my I
would say do something else. Do
something, you know, random and then
focus afterwards. That would be I think
uh I I was advocating against the
obsession that people had about four
years ago with STEM subjects
>> and now AI is going to make them all
irrelevant anyway perhaps. Uh so you
know I it's interesting to see
everything changes. Um
jobs are not that hard you know turn up
be enthusiastic
uh be turn up in in person be
enthusiastic uh help people say you'll
be fine in any job people you know.
>> Did you always know when the chance to
take showed up like this is okay this is
interesting this is new this is
different. Not always. No. But I did the
the big times were the chance to move to
America. For me, that was a big moment.
My life was a mess.
>> That was weird timing. So I I I read
that uh Sam wrote you an email
>> in South America.
>> I literally I was in South America in
Colombia when there was a war raging
there.
>> Y
>> um I was making a series of very poor
life choices and a lack of life skills.
Age 25. Um,
my latest poor choice was to get up too
early cuz the police didn't start work
till 9:00, but the mugger started at
8:00. And so I was out uh walking along
the beach at 8 uh and these uh guys,
this raster uh turned up who I've been
talking to the day before and started
trying to talk to me. And then two guys
came up to talk to him. And I couldn't
tell if they were trying to mug him cuz
he owed the money or he bought me to
them. But I did notice one of them had a
machete and the other had a kind of
broken gun. So I thought, "This is not
good." And I ran off, sprinted down the
beach in my in my uh silly shoes and uh
got to the chance once in my life to run
over to a road, run, jump into a taxi
and scream, you know, take me anywhere.
Feel like I'm an action movie. And guys
chasing after the machete and the taxi
driver looks back, sees the dude with
the machete and goes, "See, Conigos?"
And they're not my friends. Get me out
of here. And then I um he drove me up
the street into a bit where the town
was. Um it's kind of between the old
town and the new town in Cartahena. And
um I got out of the car and then cut my
foot on a rock. That was the sum total
of my injuries. And um then went to an
internet cafe cuz this was probably late
98 and got the chance to come and work
on a game for 6 weeks in New York. And I
was like, "Well, if I stay in South
America much longer, I'm going to get
myself killed cuz this was I was getting
into silly stuff." Um,
and so went to New York and they just
started Rockstar. And so I got to sort
of write the mission statements and and
whatnot there and and helped set the
tone for that and just ended up staying,
you know, had to come and go a bit while
visas got sorted out and then just ended
up staying for a stay for a year because
New York's pretty fun. It actually was
not that. This was the height of
Giuliani before he was a maniac. Um, so
he uh you couldn't when you went to
bars, you were told you couldn't dance.
>> Mhm.
>> Cuz they were trying to clamp down on
New York being fun. So it was actually
less fun than London, but there's still
a great energy in New York
>> and got exposed to the kind of madness
of New York capitalism.
>> By the way, as we hear sirens in the
background, that always makes me think
of New York. Whenever I'm in New York,
there's always sirens.
>> Steam coming out the floor, people
screaming at you. I mean, you get people
screaming at you in LA at least.
>> Yeah. But it's more dist It's more
spread out. You can get a bit more quiet
here.
>> Yeah.
>> Um, and I love the energy. You know, it
was great to work hard and then be able
to go out for dinner late and and it New
York was really really a fun experience
for me.
>> You work with your brother Sam for many
years. Uh, what do you admire
about him as a creative mind as a human
being?
>> His drive and his
vision
uh early on to see what video games
could become. He was the one who
understood that video games were the
next big thing. And I think that was uh
you know people would laugh in our face
about that in those days. And so to have
someone that was strong and saying no no
we stick stay to the course and then
having the confidence to push through
with these big projects.
>> Are you excited for the future of video
games? Yeah, I think I I completely I
still I still look at I'm glad you
spoken so I mean you've spoken so kindly
about our work about the stuff that I
did and the stuff the whole teams did.
It's wonderful but I just look at it and
see problems and see things that we can
make do better. You know I think uh it
was always try each time do it better
and I've you know some of the stuff
we're working on now is going to do
stuff that people haven't really seen
before. Uh, and I think it's just I
think that games can get so much better.
They can feel so much more alive. All
the they can be better at storytelling
and feel more alive and feel like you
know their systems all the stuff the
component parts we talked about you can
we can both make each of those parts
better and tie them together better. I
think it's the technology is all to me
it still feels like it's only just
beginning. You know, it's been it's been
cinema evolved from like
1900, 1895, whenever it was until they
invented talking in 1930 or whatever
that was. It's not that. And then it's
kind of found its modern form. And then
by 39, they're shooting in color. And
that's basically a modern film is no
different from a 1939 film. But with
games, I still think we've got a long
way to go. the tech. There's so many
different parts of the tech that it's
still got a long way to go and you can
go in all different fun directions.
>> I just wish and I know you said video
games take a lot less than they poss
they they could but I just wish it was
faster. Like you've already made me fall
in love with Absur and you've made me
fall in love with the Better Paradise
and now I I'm going to sit depressed
realize I'm going to have to wait. I can
of course read. We should have some
little short cartoons coming out in a
while for Serverse and more stuff coming
in the next period. But yeah, it just
takes it takes a little bit of time and
I think I mean movies you big movies are
four years plus from start to end.
>> Yeah.
>> You know, with all the legal stuff at
the start, you know, will be about the
same.
>> Yeah. and certain movies from idea to
completion I mean take 10 plus years and
some of the a lot of that's just that
development process that is really
sometimes feels like it's designed to
not make stuff
>> a bit more of a specific advice but uh
on the topic of video games what advice
would you give to uh to maybe
independent video game creators that are
dreaming of creating great games they're
inspired by Red Deadp aspiring of all
the incredible open worlds and
narratives you've created
like how's it possible to have a chance
at doing something like that?
>> I mean, it's part the two two ways. Try
and do it cheaply for with with yourself
in a small group or join a company that
you think is doing it the right way, you
know, and I think there's upsides to
either of those. I think if you want to
make something that's cinematic,
AI is going to change some of this, but
if you want to make something cinematic,
you need resources. You can still make
something that's really interesting that
isn't super cinematic, but it's an
interesting experience in some ways. But
the second you're involving actors and
motion capture and one of those big
experiences, it's going to cost some
money. So therefore, the if you want to
do that, you've got to figure out what
companies you want to work at and figure
out how you get to work there.
>> Do you have do you have hope for AI
helping with some of the video some of
the video generation, some of the world
generation,
some of the open world assistance in in
generating the world?
>> Yes. Limited. Absolutely. If used
correctly, it will be a great tool. If
used incorrectly, it will lead to loads
of generic stuff.
>> Yeah.
>> You know, I've been in games for 29
years, and all the time the piece of
tech that's going to make making games
much easier and much cheaper is about to
turn up. And all that's happened is the
games have got much better and way more
expensive. So, I'm always nervous about
saying, "Finally, we have that bit of
tech that makes our lives easier." But,
it looks as if it might be able to do
that when you use it in the right way.
If you use it, you know, if you use it
to try and as a substitute for
creativity, it's going to be really
generic.
>> Uh, big ridiculous question. Uh, what's
the meaning of this whole thing we have
going on here of life, of existence? Why
are we here?
>> To watch the universe. The easiest
plausible answer is we are designed by
the universe to watch itself and to
comment on it in interesting ways.
>> Consistently more and more interesting
ways. Yeah. Uh what role does love play
as part of that?
>> It's the only thing that makes it
possibly worth doing. Everything else,
everything material is irrelevant. So
the only things of value are these
immaterial things. You know, I do think
metaphysics always trumps physics for
me.
>> Well, Dan, from the bottom of my heart,
speaking of love, thank you.
>> What a pleasure. Thank you, ma'am. Thank
you for everything you've created in
this world. Me and millions of dieh hard
fans of your games are forever grateful.
I know there's a lot of people that
would like to say thank you to you.
>> Just to be clear, cuz I always like to
make this very clear.
>> Yeah.
>> It was never me. It was always me sat
alongside people with actual real talent
>> who did amazing things.
>> Well, I I hope you keep uh being
self-critical and creating awesome stuff
in the world. Um, and uh, we can't wait
to keep exploring the worlds you create,
man. Thank you so much for talking
today, brother.
>> Thank you for having me. What a
privilege.
>> Thanks for listening to this
conversation with Dan Hower. To support
this podcast, please check out our
sponsors in the description where you
can also find links to contact me, ask
questions, get feedback, and so on. And
now, let me leave you with some words
from Ernest Hemingway, one of Dan's and
my favorite writers.
The world breaks everyone and afterward
many are strong at the broken places.
Thank you for listening and hope to see
you next time.