An incident involving explicit content left the development team shaken.
During the interview, Lex asked what it was like to work under intense pressure:
The expectations and excitement surrounding Grand Theft Auto 6 are extraordinary. It was the same with GTA 5, GTA 4, and even earlier entries. Yet you and your team managed it every time. How hard is it to stay creative under that kind of pressure when everyone expects the game to be a hit?
Dan Houser explained his mindset — he tried to do something original and, for a while, deliberately put thoughts of money aside to focus on the project:
…I try to just get on with it, and in creative work I’ve always felt a bit like an impostor: “I feel awful and maybe I’ll be found out, but just do your best and hope they don’t catch you.” If I can honestly say, “I pushed myself on this project, I worked hard, I didn’t copy anyone, and I did the right things” — that, to me, is enough. I’m trying to bring something new, and as a team we made something we can be proud of. That’s enough. If I wanted to avoid going mad, I couldn’t sit worrying about sales figures. If we made something great that didn’t sell, that should be acceptable, because the aim is to create something worthwhile…
He then moved on to the financial aspect: game development uses other people’s money, and that money needs to be recouped.
You know, games are expensive, so it’s a commercial form of creativity — a commercial art. You have to remember you’re spending huge sums of other people’s money and you should try to return it. At the same time I told myself: “To get that money back you have to try to make something outstanding.” So both kinds of pressure end up pointing the same way.
Houser also brought up the Hot Coffee episode — in 2005 modders uncovered hidden sexual content in GTA: San Andreas, which triggered widespread controversy: the game was temporarily re-rated for adults, pulled from some store shelves, and faced lawsuits.
I think GTA 4 was developed under enormous pressure because the company was under intense strain — Rockstar was several times on the brink after Hot Coffee. It was incredibly tough. So that period was highly stressful. With GTA 3 the company was almost broken. I was young then and didn’t care — I hadn’t yet lived in the adult world. Each game’s development brought its own pressures: the more I immersed myself in the creative process and pushed for ambition, the more pressure I felt.
Source: iXBT.games