GTA is undoubtedly the workhorse of Take-Two Interactive. This series was in fact able to establish itself as one of the most profitable of the entire entertainment industry, with GTA 5 which alone was able to easily exceed 100 million copies sold. Still, the series almost never saw the light of day, as Grand Theft Auto 2 Producer Colin Macdonald reveals.
In an interview with BBC 5, Macdonald talked about his early years at DMA Design, now Rockstar North, and some anecdotes specifically concerning the first Grand Theft Auto. Apparently, many of the developers were not sure of the success of this title, from the then so smoky direction and from the failed technical sector. DMA would therefore have wanted to focus on something else.
“The title that most of all risked not having a sequel was Grand Theft Auto. This is because, in the midst of development, there was no clear direction on the game. It was also pretty buggy – you couldn’t play it for more than a few minutes without crashing, and there definitely wasn’t a lot of confidence about it.”reveals the producer of GTA 2. In general, GTA has always been a project on which DMA had more than one perplexity.
Macdonald then revealed that initially Grand Theft Auto… was not a Grand Theft Auto. The ideas and part of the base were in fact taken from an experimental project where a dinosaur roamed the map and destroyed buildings. Only later the team decided to add cars, and from there the focus of the game changed completely.
In short, we risked living in a world without GTA, and Take-Two would have risked missing out on a resounding commercial success like GTA 5, a success that will perhaps even be surpassed by GTA 6, which according to Microsoft we could see in 2024. Take-Two warns: will set a standard not only for the gaming world, but also in the entertainment one.
Source: BBC 5