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Original GTA Developers Not Thrilled With Upcoming Movie
Last month we reported on a new TV docudrama from The BBC about the making of Rockstar's popular open world series Grand Theft Auto. It seems that some of the key players behind the original aren't too keen on the production, however.
Before it was the flagship franchise of the Rockstar North studio, GTA was the product of a smaller group called DMA Design. Steve Hammond, a writer for DMA who worked on the first GTA, told Gamesradar that he found it odd that none of his coworkers knew anything about the film.
"Some of the DMA people had a large Facebook chat about it," he said. "My favorite quote was 'Well, they got the fact of GTA's existence correct.'"
The main focus of the documentary seems to be taken from the book Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto. Author David Kushner spent over ten year's researching for it, interviewing many of the folks from Rockstar about their roles, but Hammond suggests that the book might be a bit overblown.
"My prediction is that the DMA Design part of the story will be an opening text crawl before the main credits, then skipping directly to GTA III. Otherwise, I wonder if the GTA team will be portrayed as badasses and bad boys compared to the other teams, as per Kushner's book? In reality, no more or less bad/weird/outsider than any other team… The true experience is a great deal of hard slog, fixing bugs, which doesn't exactly make dramatic television."
Fellow GTA writer Brian Baglow shared similar sentiments. "I'm assuming it may well be based on a grab bag of archive materials," he said. "Old interviews, maybe David Kushner's exciting novelization and the screenwriters' ideas of what it's like to work in the white heat of cutting edge game development. It's fair to say we're all fairly nervous about that..."
BBC Two will run the drama some time later this year, with filming set to start April 20. Former GameSpot editor Guy Cocker is working on the show, and says that Rockstar is not involved. Daniel Radcliffe, the star of the Harry Potter films is also rumored to be playing Sam Houser, the co-founder of Rockstar Games.
The show will be part of a UK-wide initiative called "Make It Digital" which is intended to "inspire a new generation to get creative with coding, programming, and digital technology."
Grand Theft Auto V is the latest entry in the GTA franchise. It has sold nearly 50 million copies since its launch in September 2013, making it one of the best-selling games ever made. The long-awaited PC port of Grand Theft Auto V will be released today, April 13, at 7:00 p.m. ET.
For more coverage of the PC version of GTA V, check out GameSpot's interview with Rockstar North as well as the new graphical options of computer players.
More...
Before it was the flagship franchise of the Rockstar North studio, GTA was the product of a smaller group called DMA Design. Steve Hammond, a writer for DMA who worked on the first GTA, told Gamesradar that he found it odd that none of his coworkers knew anything about the film.
"Some of the DMA people had a large Facebook chat about it," he said. "My favorite quote was 'Well, they got the fact of GTA's existence correct.'"
The main focus of the documentary seems to be taken from the book Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto. Author David Kushner spent over ten year's researching for it, interviewing many of the folks from Rockstar about their roles, but Hammond suggests that the book might be a bit overblown.
"My prediction is that the DMA Design part of the story will be an opening text crawl before the main credits, then skipping directly to GTA III. Otherwise, I wonder if the GTA team will be portrayed as badasses and bad boys compared to the other teams, as per Kushner's book? In reality, no more or less bad/weird/outsider than any other team… The true experience is a great deal of hard slog, fixing bugs, which doesn't exactly make dramatic television."
Fellow GTA writer Brian Baglow shared similar sentiments. "I'm assuming it may well be based on a grab bag of archive materials," he said. "Old interviews, maybe David Kushner's exciting novelization and the screenwriters' ideas of what it's like to work in the white heat of cutting edge game development. It's fair to say we're all fairly nervous about that..."
BBC Two will run the drama some time later this year, with filming set to start April 20. Former GameSpot editor Guy Cocker is working on the show, and says that Rockstar is not involved. Daniel Radcliffe, the star of the Harry Potter films is also rumored to be playing Sam Houser, the co-founder of Rockstar Games.
The show will be part of a UK-wide initiative called "Make It Digital" which is intended to "inspire a new generation to get creative with coding, programming, and digital technology."
Grand Theft Auto V is the latest entry in the GTA franchise. It has sold nearly 50 million copies since its launch in September 2013, making it one of the best-selling games ever made. The long-awaited PC port of Grand Theft Auto V will be released today, April 13, at 7:00 p.m. ET.
For more coverage of the PC version of GTA V, check out GameSpot's interview with Rockstar North as well as the new graphical options of computer players.
More...