Portal VGTimes have prepared a large piece of material in which they argued why Dan Howser’s departure from Rockstar Games will negatively affect the GTA series.
The editorial staff of LibertyCity decided to write a response article with a completely opposite opinion – we believe that Dan Howser’s departure will not affect the future of the Grand Theft Auto series. We give our arguments, while responding to the arguments of our colleagues.
Before reading it, we advise you to read their material.
In The Shadow of The Stars.
Dan Howser has been the head screenwriter throughout the history of Rockstar Games. It’s pointless to deny his merits – this man has really contributed a lot to the development of many games from Rockstar and the GTA series in particular.
But we shouldn’t forget that other people who have been in the shadows have also worked on the script, and it’s unlikely that you’ve even heard their names.
For example, Michael Answorth (Midnight Club: Los Angeles, Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned, Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare, Red Dead Redemption, L.A.). Noire, Max Payne 3, Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2), Rupert Humphreys (all early listed games and Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars) and James Warroll (Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Manhunt, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories).
The departure of Dan Hauser as chief screenwriter, of course, the phenomenon is unpleasant, but the statement that without “Dan Hauser would not have happened that very “GTA” is pulled by the ears and has nothing to do with the reality of things.
Rockstar Games Has Not Supported Modellers For A Long Time.
One of the secrets of Grand Theft Auto series success is its modifications. There are more than 70 thousand of them in our file archive alone! And this figure is growing every day.
Our colleagues correctly labeled fashion as the key to the success of the franchise, but Dan Hauser did not produce any influence on fashion designers. Moreover, Rockstar Games stopped supporting fashion creators back in 2005, after the release of GTA San Andreas on personal computers, because of the famous scandal with “hot coffee”.
All tools for mod makers are made by the players themselves, and the guys from Rockstar pretend that they just don’t notice the creators of modifications.
The only case when the “rock stars” stood up for the modmakers, was related to the conflict Take-Two and the authors of the program OpenIV – the only program of its kind to edit the archives of GTA 4 and GTA 5. Then the publisher forced the authors of the program to stop supporting it, allegedly using it to create cheats for GTA Online.
Then representatives of Rockstar Games tame the publisher and talked to the authors of OpenIV, after which the program resumed its work. However, the dialogue itself only took place after a major strike of the players, so talk about the positive attitude of the company to the mods have a stretch.
Take-Two Counts Money
According to unconfirmed rumors, Take-Two fired Dan Hauser because of the fact that Rockstar Games has become less common to release new games. And it could have been true, if not for the fact that GTA 5 alone, released in 2013, still brings billions of dollars annually.
Take-Two unobtrusively advised “rock stars” to release new games more often, but for Take-Two itself there is no serious need, and the dismissal of Hauser for this reason now sounds absurd. In the frequent releases of games are primarily interested in the players, and the publisher is interested in making a profit.
This statement can be regarded as a fear of the publisher to start chasing players because of the long wait for new games. However, this scenario is very unlikely, because the audience of GTA is only growing over time, and the seventh year of GTA Online has become the most popular in the history of the game.
There are No Irreplaceable People.
Of course, with Dan Howser gone, part of this company’s history will go away. But Rockstar Games isn’t just the Hauser brothers at the helm. They’re thousands of employees and dozens of studios around the world. It’s a well-established brand, a mark of quality, and billions of dollars in revenue from the 7-year-old game alone.
Yes, Dan Howser has made a huge contribution to the company. But it can’t be said that the company was solely on his shoulders the whole time. You have to face it, there are no irreplaceable people.
