We speak of Grand Theft Auto III as this industry-changing title that basically decided the console wars after Microsoft passed on it. But did you know that the reality is that the game that arguably started it all for Grand Theft Auto was made on a "shoestring budget" and the people behind it were weeks away from closing down?
As unlikely as this may seem, this is true. Dan Houser recently shared the remarkable story of how GTA 3 went from a desperate gamble to a company-saving miracle in a matter of weeks.
In an interview with The Chris Evans Breakfast Show on Virgin Radio, Rockstar's co-founder revealed that, before GTA 3 launched in October 2001, Rockstar's parent company Take-Two Interactive was in dire financial straits.
According to Houser, the publisher was hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, facing a situation that threatened the existence of the entire operation. The pressure was immense, and everything was riding on a game with a development budget of approximately $5 million. For context, Grand Theft Auto 6 will reportedly cost Rockstar multiple billions to make and market when it's all said and done.
Houser himself described the game as being made on a shoestring, emphasizing just how tight the financial constraints really were, as the development team consisted of roughly 25 people working at DMA Design, which would later become Rockstar North. This meant Rockstar had to use every dollar and every person, including former lead director Obbe Vermeij, as efficiently as possible.
What makes the story even more remarkable is the timing of its release. The game was scheduled to launch in October 2001, just weeks after the September 11th terrorist attacks that devastated New York City and shocked the entire world. The worst part? It was set in Liberty City, a fictionalized version of New York, creating some uncomfortable parallels.
According to Houser, the development team had to make some last-minute changes to the game to remove or alter content that could have seemed insensitive or offensive in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. He didn't go into much detail regarding the exact nature of these changes, but they were apparently significant enough to require attention with weeks to go before the game's release.
Despite these challenges and the uncertain mood in the country, Rockstar proceeded with the launch, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Houser recalled that when he returned to the United States approximately two weeks after the game's release, GTA 3 was already selling at a rate of roughly 50,000 copies per day, generating revenue at a pace that quickly wiped out Take-Two's massive debt. The series has continued to break records with each major release. Grand Theft Auto 5, released in 2013, has outsold every PlayStation game to date, and GTA 6 is expected to exceed it in sales figures.
Looking back more than two decades later, it's almost surreal to think about how different the industry would've looked had GTA failed. Take-Two might have gone bankrupt, Rockstar might have been dissolved or sold off, and one of gaming's most influential franchises would never have reached its potential. The entire open-world genre might have developed differently without GTA 3's template to follow, and the government would have to look for another "media boogeyman" in place of GTA.
