Writing a story set in New York while also living there is going to lead to some kinds of overlap. But Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser recently revealed in an interview with Lex Fridman that Grand Theft Auto 4 took some unexpected inspiration from his own personal life.
"I had been living in New York for a few years, and wasn't sure if I was happy," Houser says. "I was going through a lot of personal drama, as usual. I was looking at some of GTA 4 again recently, and it's really dark, and I was like, 'Ah, that's why.' I was single and miserable, and I wasn't sure I wanted to stay in America." All good reasons to end up writing a dark yet brilliant script for GTA 4.
"My life felt in a lot of flux," Houser continues. "As a company, we had all that Hot Coffee drama, so we constantly thought we may be shut down in the middle of making [GTA 4]." If you're not aware, the Hot Coffee drama that Houser is referring to spawned from a mini-game in GTA: San Andreas. Found by a team of hackers, it let players have sex with CJ's girlfriend after prompting "movement" commands.
This may not seem like a huge deal now, but it was quite the controversy at the time, as the game was pulled from shelves and re-rated to Adults Only. Rockstar even faced lawsuits and congressional hearings; needless to say, it was stressful.
"Having had this run of success and relative personal stability from GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas, suddenly life felt very unsure, and that kind of bled into [GTA 4]," Houser adds.
But the process of writing GTA 4's story did involve more than just being sad in New York. Houser adds that his process of writing may not seem productive to all, as it's a lot of "running away from work" and "thinking about it but not working", which I do honestly vibe with.
"The process was trying to find an underbelly to New York and capture an immigrant experience, though I'm not entirely sure how accurate that immigrant experience was in 2008," Houser says. "I spent probably about a year travelling around with cops or meeting people, wandering around New York."
It does sound like Houser's process involves quite a bit of worrying about deadlines and whether the characters and story will all work out: "Is it going to feel ridiculous? And I remember being very scared because I thought it might be too much. It might feel over the top." But as is the trend with GTA games, it worked out very well.
"The motion capture and the animation came back, and after that I was like 'Yeah, it kind of works'," Houser says. "Once we had those, we went, 'Okay, we've now got comedy and tragedy with this character. Now it's working.'"
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