Dan Houser On How Rockstar Does It

Rockstar Games co-founder and vice president of creative Dan Houser doesn't spend a lot of time on the interview circuit, and you'll almost never find him on a panel of industry experts. Instead, he prefers to let the company's work do the talking.

In this rare interview, Houser outlines how the company makes its decisions -- from booting Max Payne into the future to deciding not to give players much of a window into its games prior to their release. He also discusses lessons learned from Red Dead Redemption and the creative bible for the Grand Theft Auto series.

With Rockstar's next major release -- Max Payne 3 -- approaching its March 2012 due date, though, he spoke to Gamasutra about the game, the challenges its faces and some of the philosophies behind one of the industry's most respected and admired development houses.

It's been eight years since we've seen a Max Payne game. That's a long time in this industry, especially these days...

DH: We have never really been annualizers. [Almost] every time we have worked in any kind of excessively quick time span, it hasn't been something we enjoyed, or thought we were able to express ourselves properly, or make it interesting. So that doesn't really concern us.

We see our role as to make good stuff. With any property or new property, it takes as long as it takes. You have to make the right game before you release it. We are convinced that the industry has come around in some ways to our way of thinking, which is there is not much middle ground anymore. There is only room for stuff of the highest quality on the consoles.

Are you concerned about player reception, since you are fighting the nostalgia factor?

DH: I think the challenge of nostalgia is a more profound one, because one thing about video games is your memory tends to remove the horrendous. Even though you enjoyed it at the time, your memory tends to fill all the blanks and [older titles] become these great, perfect experiences.

So that nostalgia is definitely a challenge. You want to appeal to the fans of the original and bring in a new audience. It's a challenge to anything when you are doing stuff with properties that have existed for sometime.

Is it more nerve wracking to go up against that sort of nostalgia or to go up against a game that is more recent in people's memories -- like when you do a Grand Theft Auto game?

DH: I don't know. They both terrify me, because we really put an enormous amount of effort into all of the games. Sequels are an interesting thing when you've got something new to say. And we obviously make plenty of sequels, but we really push ourselves to make sure we are not just doing it as a way of trying to fleece out money and strangle a property in its infancy.

So, I think, in both cases, the challenge is to get the fans happy with what you are doing. People are confused and upset by some [changes] and excited by others. And we have seen that with new GTAs [in the past] and we are seeing it now with Max Payne.

Before people play it, any change is a challenge. When they play it, hopefully, they will understand what you've changed, and what you haven't changed, and why you made those decisions, and come to see that they were not made out of anything apart from the love for the property and respect for the people who are playing.

Max Payne 3

You saw some of that reaction when screens for Max Payne 3 came out, with a paunchy Max and the shaved head.

DH: Yeah, yeah -- which was only half the story even then, but absolutely we saw a lot of people questioning our parentage, and our right to be doing this and, you know, our right to even exist. And I think we expected a little of that and we honestly were pleased -- not to upset anybody -- but pleased because it proved what we believed: that the franchise had a lot of love and there is a lot of love for this property. The fact that there's a huge rabid fan base is something that is very much in our favor.

Of course, at the time you are being called an asshole or whatever, it is upsetting because we take it personally. And we take the work seriously and upsetting people is not something we set out to do, but sometimes that kind of upsetting [occurs].

You're in a profession where there is a lot of feedback from the people and not all of it is positive. Do you read the forums and feedback or do you just try and stay focused on what you are doing?

DH: We do a bit of both. We try not to read too much, but we definitely see some of it. We try not to get consumed by it, but try to look at it for what it is and look at what the underlying messages of anything are, rather than being too reactive to stuff.

The internet generates opinions on things when people don't have too much information. We know all the information about Max Payne, at least, so to respond to someone who doesn't know much about it yet based on one screen shot of one level of a big game causes you grievance.

Can you discuss the catalyst that made you decide its time to bring Max back and do more with him?

DH: Basically we have been meaning to start it for a while, but we have limited bandwidth and limited studios, and more games to make than we've started. So suddenly it was a good slot.

Also, contrary to a lot of people, we like to take a little bit of time at the end of a game before starting a sequel, so we can wait for the excitement or disappointment and everything else of the experience to shake down and really see what we should do in the next game.

So we knew that we didn't want to start doing the Bully sequel instantly at that second with those guys -- even though it is a property that, like Max, we adore and might come back to in the future. There was just no impetus to do that then.

So we said, "You can do Max, and then we will see what we can do with Bully." So it was really waiting for the slot to open up and the group to open up to at least start work on it.

A few years ago, you had mentioned that games were slowly getting creditability as an art form. I am curious where you think they stand these days. Have they made a sizable progress?

DH: I don't know. I kind of swore that I would stop talking about that because it got people obsessed by it. It's sort of a parlor debate, and we really never let it affect what we did.

We make something we think above all is going to be enjoyable for people to play. Otherwise they are not going to keep doing it -- and the idea that anything could be artistic and not enjoyable is something that I am not sure I agree with.

Apart from that, I think it is a commercial medium, just as cinema is a commercial medium, and pop music is a commercial medium, and they can all make some things that are artistic and some that are purely exploitive.

Does it have creditability? In some ways I hope not, because we will become more and more controlled and Academy-sized [as an industry] and you'll lose a lot of the freedom that we enjoy.

So it's probably not for us to say, but probably more for you to say if you think it's interesting and has artistic merit. If you sit there obsessing. "Am I an artist or the equivalent of someone who makes KFC Value Meals?" it doesn't lead to success. So we just do what we do.

For plenty of developers, story is an afterthought to the game's action elements. Why does Rockstar put such an emphasis on narrative?

DH: If games are to be the next major form of creative consumption, art, cultural expression, or whatever the correct term is, then strong narrative has to be part of that. I think it doesn't necessarily have to just be about linear narrative, but it can be about experience of being in these worlds we make and exploring them in a nonlinear way.

I think that's a great strength of games. You get this atmosphere and sense of immersion that you can't get from anything else. The immersion, which comes partly from the way things look and partly from the way you respond to things and the way certain random characters treat you, has to be engaging and the direct linear narrative has to be engaging. Plus a poorly written story ruins everything just as much as a mechanic being broken ruins everything.

Everything has to feel like it's the same level. It has to feel like you are the same guy when you shooting a gun or running as you are when you are involved in a story or when you are just wandering around the world. It has to feel like this is one experience. So if the mechanics are fine and the story is ridiculous, the experience is much diminished.

Your games often have a cinematic quality and that lets you, as developers, be in charge of the story. But it seems like this industry is moving more and more toward multiplayer. where you have less control of that.

DH: Absolutely.

So how do you handle that?

DH: Well, Max has both. It has a single player component and multiplayer component. So I believe that we wanted to put some elements of single play into the multiplayer, so the multiplayer will have a lot more detail and have elements of story in it and have a sort of an immersive quality. We think that's something that is under-explored in multiplayer.

In multiplayer, I think we are feeling like it's a really fun learning experience for us, really. We are trying to figure out how to get better at it. I think we've demonstrated the power of the third person perspective in single player games and our challenge is now to take that over [to multiplayer].

You obviously have certain advantages in the first person, with the targeting. To solve that first in a single person game that was a straight shooter like Max, and then to take that over to multiplayer, it's definitely a challenge we're excited by and aware of.

Are we going to see DLC for Max Payne?

DH: We'll see something, but I don't know what it will be yet. We are often not as organized or cynical -- you can see it either way -- as people think we are going to be with plans laid out this far out with everything. We will get those plans in order in the next few month, but they are just not sorted out yet.

What did you learn from the DLC for Grand Theft Auto IV and Red Dead Redemption?

DH: The two key lessons we learned were that if you want a vibrant multiplayer community, you have got to provide content frequently and fairly quickly after release, which we tried to do with Red Dead.

And I think the two GTA episodes, from a creative standpoint, were absolutely fantastic. We are very, very, very proud of them. And we are kind of compelled due to various other business factors to make them that size -- but something at $20 for DLC, maybe $10 is a more exciting price point.

We have to talk a little bit about the timing. You had the big coming out party for the game in 2009, with the Game Informer cover. And then you obviously had a couple of series of delays. What sort of impact does that have on the team and for you?

DH: I think it's part of the industry, if you want high quality games. Maybe, if you are making a sequel without much design innovation and without any real technical innovation -- you know, just a bunch of new content on board with a broadly existing engine with a broadly existing design -- you can have some degree of confidence in guessing your release date.

Anyone that's doing what we were trying to do and guesses at the start of the project exactly when things are going to be done, well they are better at this job than I am. We can't do that while guaranteeing quality.

What impact did it have on the team? None negative. I think the team was happy that we were pursuing quality. They weren't done, and they could see they weren't finished and it wasn't right, so we were going to keep working on it until it was finished and it was right.

It won't be our longest development cycle. It won't be our shortest.

One of the other things that this studio is well known for is very carefully controlling the information that comes out before and during a game. In the movie industry, they are offering fans more of a peek behind the curtain of late.

DH: Yeah.

It doesn't seem like you are very eager to embrace that. Does it take away the magic?

DH: That's really it. It was really important to us that the games felt kind of magical. And seeing too many videos and or even seeing interviews of us sitting there pointing stuff out and showing how it's all done [detracts from that].

I think with the movies, the less you know about the stars the better. The best movies are where you go and don't know anyone that's in it. And we want to keep that feeling -- we always did and continue to want it now -- where it might annoy people that we don't give out more information. But I think the end point is people enjoy the experience.

Obviously, it's a balancing act to sell the game... We used to have an exact formula for how much information you give out and how much you wouldn't. Literally, it was sort of a pie chart. It's hard to be that controlling, but you certainly want features that people are discovering. Some amount they learn about in advance, and some amount in reviews, but hopefully you can keep [other aspects] quiet until [people] are actually playing the game, because you want it to have the surprises and you want it to be magic.

The less they know about how things are pieced together and how things are exactly broken down, and exactly what our processes are, the more it will feel like this thing is alive, that you are being dragged into the experience. That's what we want.

One of the hot new technologies of this industry these days is 3D. Is there a room or a place for true stereoscopic 3D in a game like Max Payne 3?

DH: I'm not really the person in Rockstar to talk to about that one, because it is no passion of mine. I don't think anyone has solved the riddle of how you make 3D an integral part of the gaming experience: 3D in terms of depth of graphics of course, but not 3D in coming out on the screen and stereoscopic.

Is it really able to impact gameplay in a meaningful way? That is something that we haven't solved. You know, I don't think any of us have come close to solving it yet, and I don't think they've solving it in cinema. But that's a more complicated debate.

There are a lot of powerful people in movies who are passionate believers in it. In games it's got a little bit less attention, because games are about gameplay, and no one has yet found a way that it enhances this gameplay.

Every other technological innovation, that either television, or console makers, or PC graphics card makers [has made that] you can see, has had a tangible impact on either the ability to make mechanics more interesting at the core level or the ability to make the characters better.

3D has not yet done that, as far as I am aware. You can point to the killer experience on most bits of new technology, or most bits of new hardware. And you can't point to anything that makes you go, "Once you play this on 3D, then you know why you want to play 3D."

I've got to ask: In Max Payne 2, Mona dies in most difficulty levels, but if you finish the game at the highest difficulty level, she lives. Where does she stand health wise at this point in Max's life?

DH: It is not continuing that aspect of the story, because of that exact issue. Because of the time difference or the platform difference, there's no way of know what anyone might have played.

We toyed with figuring out some way, or doing something clever, and then [decided] "No, no, just move on from that bit of the story." It really didn't work because there was no way of knowing the choices someone made.

Options turn your consumer from a passive consumer into an active consumer. The more choices you give them, the more balls go into the air, and the more problems you have when it comes your turn to reset the balls up for their next go at it.

It is interesting work in making a narrative that responds to what the players want and the player's choices. The second you do that, though, it makes sequels very hard. So it is super exciting that stuff, but it also can make your head spin.

I can't even imagine what your bible is for a game like GTA, and much less for one like Max.

DH: Oh, I've got several bibles for GTA. There has to be, because there is a bible for brands, and a bible for radio, and one for background characters. Really, there is no one single knowledge base on GTA. There's too much now. I mean, between the technical and the non-technical sides -- but even on the non-technical content sides.

Well, there is one expert -- and it is the fan base.

DH: Yes! We don't make a lot of mistakes, but if we make them, they find them in seconds -- even the tiniest little things hidden away in the back of beyond in the games. You have to be careful because they are there for you.

It's funny. I spoke with Tim Kring, the creator of the TV show Heroes, earlier this year, and even that show had so much mythology going on he said that the writers lost track. But thankfully, the fans were so obsessive they had basically put together a wiki, and the writers were pulling information from that.

DH: We do the same. I would be very surprised if anyone working on a long running thing like this that is popular these days isn't. The wiki is pretty good. For some of the older games, where I just want to remember a particular person's name or a particular brand or something, it's probably in our records, but some of the details stuff from the wiki is amazing and we love it.