[image: GTA VI / Facebook]
Like children waiting for Christmas, the much-anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI has gamers in a spin, and nobody understands this better than CEO and chairman of Take-Two, Strauss Zelnick.
Zelnick believes the anticipation for that title may be “the greatest anticipation I’ve ever seen for an entertainment property.”
Grand Theft Auto, or simply GTA to fans, holds the title of the most profitable entertainment release ever – across all mediums – with the GTA series having sold 430 million copies worldwide. Its latest edition, GTA V, is reportedly the third best-selling game of all time, only behind Minecraft and Tetris. Between 1997 and 2013, 15 editions were released, followed by 12 years of silence.
But now, the wait for the next installment is nearly over. Rockstar, the game’s publisher, has promised that GTA VI will arrive this year, though there’s been just one teaser trailer released 16 months ago.
“It’s getting ridiculous how long it’s been since the last one,” programmer Keith Hamilton, who led the team responsible for coding GTA and GTA II, says. “They really need to release something now. The pressure’s on because GTA is worth billions to the parent company, Take-Two.”
The original GTA marked a shift in gaming, simulating a living city in an open-world environment where the action continued even when the player was idle. It wasn’t fantasy, sci-fi, or military-based and allowed players to step into a world where they could engage in everything immoral or illegal they couldn’t do in real life.
“You’d be shocked if you saw it now – but somehow, it worked.” recalls Keith, now 55.
“Disorganised chaos. Looking back, it’s incredible how we actually pulled it together and finished a game.”
The game didn’t go unnoticed by the stiffs. Former British Conservative Lord Gordon Campbell even raised concerns in Parliament, questioning whether the game’s themes of car theft, joyriding, and hit-and-runs could be accessed by children.
Ironically, the controversy only increased the game’s appeal, Keith recalls, with players enjoying the subversive nature of it. “There was a whole cultural aspect to it we never intended.”
The core elements of the first game have remained integral to the series’ success, according to Keith. “In terms of design, they stuck pretty close to the original formula. The basic structure of the game remained the same,” he explains.
But the leap to GTA III was revolutionary. It removed separate levels and expanded the game world into massive, interconnected 3D cities. This marked what Keith calls the biggest technical leap of the franchise, as the game’s world was loaded in real time from a DVD, not from computer memory, allowing for cities as vast as the developers were willing to design.
GTA III became the second-best-selling game of 2001 and stayed in the top three alongside its successor, GTA: Vice City.
While GTA: San Andreas was another blockbuster hit in 2004, GTA V truly redefined the series, particularly with its multiplayer component. GTA V was one of the top five best-selling video games in the UK for five years after its 2013 release, but its success went beyond just game sales. It was the fastest entertainment release – from any medium – to reach $1 billion in retail sales.
“It’s amazing to see something created in Scotland competing on a global stage. I think that’s a big deal,” Keith says.
One of the key innovations of GTA V was its multiplayer mode, which allowed up to 30 players to join a massive open world to complete heists, battle each other, and build custom races.
That level of online interaction has kept players invested for years, even through the 12-year wait for GTA VI. Over this period, GTA V earned Rockstar and Take-Two billions, cementing its place as the most profitable entertainment release ever, as of 2018.
As for GTA VI, much remains shrouded in secrecy. Even Keith’s friends at Rockstar aren’t spilling any secrets.
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Sam Houser, founder of Rockstar Games, teased in December that the sequel would “push the limits of what’s possible in highly immersive, story-driven open-world experiences.”
Keith believes the game is already complete, with staff now working tirelessly to fix the increasingly complex bugs.
“The pressure is on the development team right now—I really don’t envy them,” he admits. “I just hope they’re not stuck in that scenario for too long because it can be soul-crushing. You lose your family life and everything.”
Fans of the franchise hope the new game will feature a more complex city and deeper consequences for players’ actions rather than simply adding more tasks. But above all, Keith believes the key to the franchise’s enduring success is maintaining its sense of fun.
“It’s crucial not to lose that,” he says.
At an estimated production cost of $2 billion, GTA VI should not disappoint.
[Source: Sky]
