GTA was initially considered the game least likely to succeed by Rockstar’s predecessor, DMA Design , all while fans eagerly await GTA 6.
The success of a big name like GTA V (find the next-gen edition discounted on Amazon) has shown how the franchise is still going very well, establishing itself as one of the most profitable ever.
It’s hard to imagine that a product like the first GTA couldn’t break through, just as the series is celebrating its 25th anniversary and with fans already busy uncovering the secrets of the sixth chapter.
As also reported by PC Games N, it is hard to believe that a certain point in the history of Grand Theft Auto was considered doomed to failure.
Before becoming Rockstar North, DMA Design created the first Grand Theft Auto under the BMG of Dan and Sam Houser. When Take-Two bought BMG, it was renamed Rockstar Games.
With GTA 6 on the horizon and GTA V and GTA Online which continue to attract millions of players, it’s hard to believe that in the beginning the publisher thought of a flop.
A new interview with a producer at DMA Design reveals how GTA was once considered a likely failure across the board: “Midway through development, there was an informal poll among staff as to which of the seven titles they were working on [DMA] would have been more successful and less successful», Colin Macdonald tells the BBC.
“The only one voted to fail was Grand Theft Auto. This is because, midway through development, the direction of the game was unclear. It was also quite buggy: you couldn’t play it for more than a couple of minutes without it crashing, so there certainly wasn’t much trust in this game at a basic level.”
Macdonald also reveals that GTA was born as a “technological experiment” to create an open-world game in which you could destroy buildings as a dinosaur. Cars were added to “bring the city to life”, when someone at DMA had the “brilliant idea” that maybe players would have more fun controlling cars than dinosaurs.
From there, GTA became a more conventional driving game called Race ‘N’ Chase, but a bug overlooked by the programmers caused the cars opponents spent more time ramring the player than trying to win. It was this unintentional glitch that gave birth to the concept of playing as a criminal, and the rest is history.
Remaining on the subject, rumors have also recently emerged that GTA 6 would have undergone a real development restart.
But that’s not all: to while away the wait for GTA 6 you can also resort to the Brazilian version of Grand Theft Auto, which will certainly not be the best but he puts all his effort into it.
