Dan Houser: GTA, Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar, Absurd & Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #484

Dan Houser · 2h 45m · youtube.com ↗

22 korrents from this recording

Dan Houser did not write this page.

Every claim below is a statement made in this recording, quoted word for word and linked to the second it was said, so you can hear it rather than take our word for it. The wording comes from the transcript published alongside the recording; the sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording.

0:09:06 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
A comedy world cannot run on jokes alone: forty hours of humour needs story, heart and drama underneath it or it stops working.

Their wordsI hope it’s got comedy, cynicism, heart, drama, and some amusing life lessons. Otherwise, you can’t just have jokes for 40 hours, it won’t work.
10 min later
0:19:09 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
What makes an open world captivating is the illusion that it was already running before you arrived and would carry on if you did nothing.

Their wordsYou know, you were in, you were in these worlds, and you went there as a visitor, and they existed almost independent of you. It felt like when you turned up, the world was running. It didn’t feel like you’d started it.
6 min later
0:25:14 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
A game is an equation between two personalities, the world's and the protagonist's, and the friction between them is where the experience comes from.

Their wordsBecause I always thought that the games were kind of a mathematical equation. They were the personality of the world, you know, multiplied or divided by the personality of the protagonist.
2 min later
0:26:52 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
A video game character has no inner life, so what they say is the only thing that can make a player know who they are.

Their wordsAnd then how do they speak? You know, because fundamentally, it doesn’t really matter what’s going on in their head; they haven’t actually got one, but what they say is what’s going to make you realize who they are.
6 min later
0:32:40 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
Wanting to build a utopia is fundamentally anti-human, because what it says is that you like humans apart from the bad bits.

Their wordsI think the power and money corrupted him in the end as well, but I also think that there’s something fundamentally anti-human about people who want to build utopias or paradises or heavens, because what they’re saying is, “I like humans apart from the bad bits.”
3 min later
0:35:42 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
Science fiction is only good when it rests on an obvious hypothesis rather than being space opera, because the story exists to test the idea.

Their wordsI was like, “Well, what is sci-fi?” It’s science fiction, right? Science is a theory plus fiction. And so I’ve always thought the best sci-fi for me was when it wasn’t just kind of space opera, but there was a real obvious sort of hypothesis.
3 min later
0:38:22 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
Language models will not replace good ideas, only the low-level work, so what they threaten is the ability to start a creative career rather than to have one.

Their wordsThey’re not going to, they’re not going to replace good ideas. They can’t really come up with good new ideas. What they can do is do low-level stuff. So I think it’s going to be harder for people to start out in some of these spaces.
0:38:22 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
AI has done the first ninety per cent of the work of sounding human, and the last five per cent will turn out to be about ninety-five per cent of the work.

Their wordsI also think that they’ve done the sort of first 90% of the work to sound human, 95% possibly in some areas. The last 5% is going to end up being about 95% of the work.
19 min later
0:57:35 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
Commercial pressure and creative ambition point in the same direction, because the way to make an expensive game's money back is to make something great.

Their wordsSo you have to be, in your mind, you’re spending large amounts of someone else’s money. You have to try and make it back for them. But at the same time, my argument with myself was, well, if we… The way to make it back is try and make something great. So both pressures are pointing in the same direction.
5 min later
1:02:11 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
Grand Theft Auto could not have been moved to London or anywhere outside America, because so much of what the series is is Americana.

Their wordsI think for a full GTA game, we always decided it was that there was so much Americana inherent in the IP, it would be really hard to make it work in London or anywhere else.
9 min later
1:10:50 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
Anticipation, not quality, is what drives a game's early sales.

Their wordsI would assume it will because it’s so anticipated, and anticipation is the best driver of early sales, as we saw with GTA4 versus Red Dead Redemption one.
2 min later
1:12:21 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
Games and film are better at different kinds of story: a long discursive adventure belongs in a game, a short tight experience in a film.

Their wordsYou know, I think, I think if you want a long, discursive adventure, a video game is better. If you want a short, tight experience, a film is better.
43 min later
1:55:23 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
New intellectual property needs single-player games, because launching a multiplayer game on a world nobody knows yet is extremely hard.

Their wordsLuckily, if you want to do what we’re forced to do and also what I want to do, which is make new IP, you need single-player games. You can launch a multiplayer game with new IP. It’s just extremely hard.
3 min later
1:58:16 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
A good open-world spy game may not be possible, because a spy story has to run against the clock and an open world needs the player free to wander.

Their wordsBut as a spy, that doesn’t really work because you have to be against the clock. So I think for me, I’m, I question if you can even make a good open world spy game.
11 min later
2:09:07 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
Tetris on the Game Boy is perfect game design, and from a pure puzzle perspective nothing else comes close.

Their wordsAnd when you link two together with the cable and if I got four, it would push yours forward. It was like the perfect game design. So from a pure puzzle perspective, nothing comes close.
10 min later
2:19:28 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
The self-critical voice is both a bug and a feature: it can wreck you, but it is also what supplies drive and a lack of complacency.

Their wordsThat self-critical brain, I think lots of people suffer from, and I think the internet is designed to induce, if you didn’t have it before, you will have it after being online. It clearly can become a bug, but it also can give you drive and a lack of complacency, so it can also become a feature.
10 min later
2:29:43 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
The most disappointing thing about the twentieth century was the absolute failure of communism.

Their wordsAnd I thought that section’s incredible because you realize in some ways, in all of its horrors, the most disappointing thing about the 20th century, in some ways, was the absolute failure of communism.
3 min later
2:32:25 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
The one political value worth fighting for is opposing thought control: removing someone for saying the wrong thing is never the right outcome, whichever side does it.

Their wordsThe never right outcome is, “Oh, you’ve said the wrong thing. You should be removed now.” That should never ever be a thing we should lean towards.
2 min later
2:34:33 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
A young person should worry about building a rounded intellectual inner life rather than about their career, because they will spend their whole life inside their own head.

Their wordsI would say do not worry too young about your career. I would say worry about having a rounded intellectual inner life, because you’re going to spend the whole of your life in your own head.
5 min later
2:39:58 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
Film found its modern form by 1939 and has barely changed since; games are nowhere near that point and still have a long way to go.

Their wordsBasically, a modern film is no different from a 1939 film. But with games, I still think we’ve got a long way to go.
3 min later
2:42:45 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
Every generation of technology is supposed to make games cheaper and easier to build, and every time the result has been better and far more expensive games.

Their wordsYou know, I’ve been in games for 29 years, and all the time, the piece of tech that’s going to make making games much easier and much cheaper is about to turn up, and all that’s happened is the games have got much better and way more expensive.
1 min later
2:43:29 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
The most plausible answer to why we are here is that we were designed by the universe to watch itself and to comment on it in interesting ways.

Their wordsTo watch the universe. The easiest plausible answer is we are designed by the universe to watch itself and to comment on it in interesting ways.