GTA Co-Founder Dan Houser Is Skipping GTA 6 on Purpose

Ever wonder why the guy who helped create Grand Theft Auto won't even watch a trailer for GTA 6? Dan Houser, Rockstar's co-founder, has a surprising reason: he's protecting his creative brain.

Houser left Rockstar in 2020 and now runs Absurd Ventures. In a chat with Variety, he admitted he skipped the GTA 6 "Extended Look" trailer and has no plans to watch it. Why? He avoids things that might "disrupt me creatively." Since he spends most of his time making open-world games and figuring out how to market them, he doesn't need to see what others are doing. "I'm always trying to think about new ways of doing it, not sit there in some kind of comparison of what I would have done differently," he explained.

It's not just GTA 6. Houser says he barely plays open-world games anymore for the same reason. When he does, he can't help but deconstruct the team behind it in real time. "I'm always thinking, 'Well, their animation team is weak, but I think this game design is fantastic.' And, 'Oh, I can imagine that meeting when they discuss this feature,'" he said. That kind of analysis is distracting when you're trying to be a creative director, not a game designer.

His avoidance strategy isn't new. When Rockstar was developing Red Dead Redemption, Houser stopped watching Western films. While formulating the original GTA, he skipped HBO's The Sopranos because it "would have disrupted everything I did on GTA." He simply tries to avoid anything that might overly influence him.

So what is he working on instead? Absurd Ventures has multiple projects, including an open-world comedy game he'll reveal "in the next few months." Another is a dystopian sci-fi game about video game development gone wrong when a rogue AI becomes sentient. Houser says being forever linked to GTA is a huge compliment, but he hopes his new work can stand on its own too.

Meanwhile, his brother and fellow Rockstar co-founder Sam Houser remains at the company and was involved in GTA 6. Sam rarely gives interviews, and a planned one recently fell apart at the last minute, according to GQ writer Sam White, who posted and then deleted tweets about it.

GTA 6 is set to launch on November 19 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. Rockstar recently shared some behind-the-scenes details on how a game like GTA 6 gets made. But for Dan Houser, the best way to stay creative is to look away. What do you think—would you be able to resist watching a GTA 6 trailer if you were in his shoes?