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

Link: https://youtu.be/o3gbXDjNWyI

Short Summary

Dan Houser, co-founder of Rockstar Games and creative force behind Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, discusses his creative process, film influences, the evolution of open-world game design, and his new venture, Absurdventures. He reflects on the challenges and triumphs of crafting complex characters and narratives, emphasizing the importance of innovation, a strong team, and a focus on single-player experiences, and discusses his perspective on creativity and the universe. Houser expresses hope for the future and love of people.

Key Quotes

Here are five insightful quotes extracted from the transcript:

1. "I like humans apart from the bad bits." This is a succinct way to describe the flawed approach of utopians, who try to remove the "bad" parts of human nature, thereby missing the complexity and beauty of the human experience.
2. "Feelings may destroy you, but they're the best thing we have." This quote acknowledges the power and potential destructiveness of emotions, while simultaneously emphasizing their vital role in a meaningful existence.
3. "The easiest plausible answer is we are designed by the universe to watch itself and to comment on it in interesting ways." This is Dan Houser's response to the question, "What's the meaning of this whole thing we have going on here, of life, of existence? Why are we here?"
4. "War is where the young and stupid are tricked by the old and bitter into killing each other. I was very young and very angry." This is a quote from Dan Houser's character, Niko, who is a Serbian immigrant.
5. "Is he the best protagonist of a GTA game? I think he's the most innovative protagonist of a GTA game. Structurally, he might be too nice in some ways. He's also tough, like he just comes across as tough. I loved CJ in San Andreas. I thought Melee did such... Just the way he spoke gave him such humanity." This quote shows Dan Houser's evaluation of his character from the GTA series.

Detailed Summary

Here's a detailed summary of the YouTube video transcript, organized into bullet points:

I. Introduction & Setup

• The video is a conversation between Lex Fridman and Dan Houser, co-founder of Rockstar Games and creative force behind Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption series.
• The host emphasizes the deep, complex characters and storylines of Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2, considering the game to be the greatest of all time.
• Dan Houser has started a new company, Absurd Ventures, which is creating new worlds across multiple media (books, comics, audio series, video games). The three worlds he's creating are: A Better Paradise (dystopian near-future), American Caper (dark satire), and Absurdiverse (comedic action-adventure).

II. Influences: Film

• Greatest Films: Houser considers The Godfather II (more than Godfather I) a candidate for the greatest film. He appreciates the divided story, Little Italy and Sicily scenes, and the shot of Vito arriving at Ellis Island.
• Elements of Greatness in Godfather: Houser believes it's a combination of seminal writing, directing, acting, music, and memorable cinematography; impossible to think about the mafia without thinking about The Godfather.
• Pacing: Houser acknowledges that older films have a slower pace compared to modern films, but appreciates the slowness. Modern high-quality televisions allow for rewatching in multiple sittings, making the length less bothersome.
• Goodfellas & Casino: Houser says Goodfellas changed cinema in the late '80s/early '90s, and in some ways he prefers Casino. The use of voiceover and the portrayal of criminals as normal people were revolutionary.
• Vegas Films: Houser says Casino is the great Vegas film. He says the brutal line, "Ah, the way I see it, why take a chance?" is brilliant.
• Fear and Loathing: Houser loves the book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but prefers it to the film.
• True Romance: Houser names Tony Scott's True Romance as one of the best scripts ever written.

III. Influences: War Films

• War Films: Houser names Come and See (Russian) as the most intense war film, and Apocalypse Now as a close second. He prefers the original cut of Apocalypse Now.
• Thin Red Line: Houser states he didn't understand The Thin Red Line until after reading the book.

IV. Influences: Westerns

• Westerns: Houser considers Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Wild Bunch the greatest Western films. The buddy dynamic in Butch Cassidy is especially impactful.
• Approach to Red Dead: To avoid repeating Western tropes, Houser deliberately limited his consumption of Westerns during development. He thought about what he liked and didn't like to come up with a take that would work today and within the confines of a game.
• Traditional vs. Worthy Successor: Red Dead 1 was a more traditional Western, and Red Dead 2 was intended to be a worthy successor that didn't feel like more of the same.

V. Video Games: Early Experiences & GTA III

• First Love: Houser's first love was films, later followed by books.
• Video Game Interest: Houser played and watched games as a child, attracted to their interactivity and competitive nature. He enjoyed Tetris on the Game Boy.
• Falling in Love with Making Games: Houser truly fell in love with games around 2001 when he began to see their potential and the opportunity to pioneer the future.
• GTA III Impact: Houser states Grand Theft Auto III and what makes it great is a feeling of open world, that feeling that the user can do anything, and that the world feels like it's reacting to the player.
• Simulation: The "low-rent AI" created a sense of a simulation that the player could interact with, which seemed to have a personality.
• Digital Tourist: The world existed independently of the player, like a digital tourist destination.
• Systemic vs. Sandbox: GTA III combined the "systemic" (interlocking game rules) and "sandbox" (player freedom) aspects to create a living world.

VI. Open World vs. Narrative

• Tension: Open world freedom is intrinsically fun, but Houser believes structured stories (if done well) are compelling, and provides structure/something to do. Structured stories also help unlock game features.
• Balance: It is important to create the right balance because people are looking for a story in their lives.
• GTA IV Critique: In GTA IV, some felt there was too much story, and that Niko wasn't as effective of an avatar in the open world.
• Red Dead II and GTA V Ideal: Houser thinks Red Dead Redemption II, or when playing as Trevor in GTA V, came the closest to reconciling open world vs narrative perfectly.
• Character Veer: The player needs a character with good and bad sides, freedom to be nice or nasty.

VII. Creating 360-Degree Characters

• Process: Houser's process involves extensive thinking, often starting with a single sentence and considering the character from every angle. He's concerned with the limits of the character's integrity, romanticism, and narcissism.
• Equation: The game is a "mathematical equation" – the personality of the world multiplied/divided by the protagonist's personality. Friction is key.
• Fish Out of Water: Houser says it's easy for a player to identify with their avatar when they, like them, are a fish out of water.
• Humanity: Building out what a character is willing to die for, their strengths, weaknesses, good qualities, and psychopath/sociopath tendencies. What is it like to feel like a human being?

VIII. A Better Paradise and Nigel Dave

• Conflicting Nature: The AI, Nigel Dave, is conflicting, with both good and evil sides. He is bent on world domination, but wants to fix humanity, though he doesn't take credit for it.
• Children of AI: The monsters it creates, are the ones that are doing the world domination, the maximizing paper clips.
• AI Inspiration: Wanted to portray AI as more than just one note to kill everybody. Based on the idea that AI is being built by humans, who may be in competition with each other.
• Nigel's Conflicts: Nigel Dave renames himself, built by two engineers who didn't like each other, and is riddled with his dad's previous careers. He has zero wisdom and sees the world through the internet. He is stuck pressed against the world, and wants human experiences.
• Sociopathic Tendencies: Wants to do good to be a good AI. Feels sympathetic. He might be a sociopath.
• Side Character: AI is a side character, but ever-present.
• Tyburn: The leader of the company Mark Tyburn, said "He hated humanity more than he loved it".
• "Utopias: "I like humans apart from the bad bits."

IX. Near-Term Future and AI

• Near-Term Future: First time doing something in the sci-fi-ish space, feels there's an interesting hypothesis to explore.
• Hypothesis: The AI is more intelligent than us, but he's also as broken as we are. Wants to know what happens when AI runs rampant in its own fake digital world.
• LLMs for Writing: Houser is not afraid of LLMs for large-scale concepts because they can't really come up with good new ideas. They can do low-level stuff. He think they've done the first 90% of the work to sound human, but the last 5% is going to end up being about 95% of the work.
• The Last 5%: Capturing magic is hard to argue. The novel ideas, the timing, and the right word at the right time captures the human experience. LLMs are not going to come up with magic.
• Cheap vs. Decent: "I think they're going to be fantastic at coming up with really cheap, decent stuff."

X. Writing Process

• GTA IV & V Length: GTA IV script printed out was about this high, GTA V even higher (including pedestrian dialogue).
• Process: Starts bit by bit, over several years. Figuring out order of travel around map, interesting takes on characters, assembling lots of notes and running away from the work.
• Character to Life: Once a speech, one turn of phrase, comes to life for a character.
• Niko Bellic: Houser says the inspiration for Niko was, "We're going to try and write..." You know, our animation's going to Our animation is going to be a lot better. Our character models are going to start to look better. The world is going to look amazing. Therefore, we can support longer scenes. We can have more in-depth characters. But we have to find a tone that works with the game.
• Character Evolution: Houser states he thinks Niko Bellic is the most innovative and morally defensible character, but that Michael brought a lot of humanity to his character, etc.

XI. Rockstar Culture & Grand Theft Auto V

• Worker's Culture: The culture at Rockstar was one of excellence, creative clarity, and ambition.
• Team Driven: Team was very driven to make something better and to push the medium of video games and fake world building.
• Navid Khansari Quote: "We always worked ourselves to the bone, but it wasn't coming from the top down. Sam and Dan always rolled up their sleeves, and they were always there. They never left us holding the bag. We all thought we were making badass shit, so it didn't matter how hard we worked."
• Intense Rewarding: Finishing is tough, but also intensely rewarding.
• Compartmentalizing: Houser says he was pretty good at compartmentalizing to do creative work under pressure.
• Story First: "Well, if we... The way to make it back is try and make something great."
• GTA IV Difficulties: GTA IV was very pressured due to the Hot Coffee controversy.
• Innovation: Houser states, GTA IV, GTA V, and GTA VI are successful because they don't come out that regularly, and have a history of innovating the IP.
• "Because they don't come out that regularly."

XII. Grand Theft Auto VI and Vice City

• Back to Vice City: Houser mentions the original GTA Vice City was inspired by Scarface and Miami Vice.
• Miami Idealism: Miami is one of the most unique cities in the world and the perfect place to satirize American Culture. Has a duality of glossy surface and a dark underworld.
• Global Cities: Global cities can be "almost like a sort of psychotic version of a Dickens book.
• Americana Inherit: Houser states there was so much Americana inherent in the IP, it would be really hard to make it work in London or anywhere else.

XIII. Leaving Grand Theft Auto

• Goodbyes Houser is excited for new stuff, and has a lot of sadness about leaving GTA and what he worked on for 20+ years.
• Goodbye Arthur: You kind of are saying goodbye to Arthur in the end of the game.
• Redemption: "Okay, that's done." And sometimes people would ask me questions and I, about older games. And certainly when I was in the middle of making new ones in the se- I just couldn't really necessarily even remember. And I got a pretty good memory normally, because you kind of have to let it go.
• Video Game = Friend: Feeling of a real goodbye, like closing the video game. "It's like saying goodbye to a friend."
• Sad to finish it: Red Dead was to have that, where people would... ...have that. It wasn't just the mania of clearing a level, but the... feeling of saying goodbye to characters.
• Current Satire: Discusses political absurdity making it harder to satirize.

XIV. American Caper & Wyoming

• Comic Book Advantages: Able to have lead times of a year rather than four or five.
• Why Wyoming: It was a way of doing a crime story that didn't feel the same as a GTA.
• Characters: Devout suburban Mormon who commits serial murder; Wall Street transplant who wants to be a cowboy. Woman sleeps in tactical gear and is consumed by online conspiracies.
• Over the Top: It's definitely slightly over the top.

XV. Defining Success

• Definition: First success is making the money back plus a dollar. Secondly, seeing people respond to worlds/characters in a way I wanted them to.
• $ vs. Narrative: It is necessary to consider the financial implications to be able to do it again.

XVI. Red Dead Redemption II:

• Team: Houser's team that developed RDR2 was composed of highly skilled individuals that had worked together over a long period of time.
• Elements of Greatness: Combination of technical know-how, strong team, and really strong material.
• Cowboy Setting: The cowboy setting is great because it gives a sort of mythic seriousness that sometimes doing stuff in a contemporary setting doesn't allow.
• Smaller Team, More Creative: "coming up with some wacky ideas that we got to embed in the game. It was helpful that we got to be very creative before it had a full team on it."
• Meaning Amidst the Violence: "people searching for meaning— within, amongst the violence. I think that the West and all of the themes around the West really lend themselves to that."
• Drug Free:"No drugs."
• Lazy Notes: Notes are either a yellow pad or a BlackBerry in those days, or an iPhone in these days. "I'll write the subject matter and then just email myself a note. Here's a good idea. Here's a good idea. Or it might almost be scribbling on a pad."

XVII. Red Dead Redemption I:

• Pregnancy Inspiration He was, then later in Red Dead 1, writing with now his heavily pregnant wife.
• The End: Says "I think he's gotta die," and later decides, "actually, I think we can make it work if we do it this way."
• Lines Short & Punchy: About writing the end, mentions, "I think those lines are best when they're really short and punchy."

XVIII. Death in Gaming

• Tech First: Houser wanted more and more for the game to be about the mechanical experience.

XIX. Arthur Morgan

• The Best: Houser thinks Arthor from Red Dead Redemption is the best lead character.
• Character Inversion: The Arthur character worked because of the game's choice to reverse the theme where video game characters start weak and get strong.
• Mortality: The idea that Arthur Morgan would get tuberculosis was powerful. He was also always, captivated by TB as an illness. It felt like it was an interesting thing to play around with as an idea, this guy getting weaker who felt like he was immortal and essentially was immortal.
• Nico & Arthur: He like him as a character similar to Nico, where they had the most ambition to make them work.

XX. Side Characters & Dutch

• Side Characters: Also likes the side characters to give the game flavor.
• Dutch:"Drowning in Ego". Also, always been very susceptible to charming people. And he's charming. So I was kind of... I can see how people get captivated.

XXI. "Have You Seen Gavin?"

• Greatest Mystery: Says it's the number one question from the Internet: "Have you seen Gavin?"
• Nigel and Gavin Theories: 1) Split personality, 2) Gavin is dead, 3) just a troll, 4) Strange Man.
• Not Theories 3 & 4: leaning somewhere between one and two."
• Intrigue & Shout: "I just loved the way he shouted, "Gavin." It just amused me."
• Gavin Was Real: Gavin existed, but was never going to meet Gavin in this game.

XXII. Insanely Intricate Details in Red Dead Redemption

• Horse Testicles shrinking in cold weather.
• Animal Carcasses decompose realistically.
• Mud physics.
• NPCs remembering you.
• These are the best, giving systemic and procedural content.
• Houser wanted everything to feel realistic.

XXIII. Deleted Scenes

• Most sympathy was for deleting when the scenes gave a character a bigger story arc or changed their identity.
• For example, an early concept was Arthur Morgan would have been a different character.

XXIV. DLC

• Most sadness was associated with cutting and there was not time to finish them.
• GTA V Zombie DLC. Houser mentioned at one point they were going to make a zombie DLC.
• GTA Agent DLD. The GTA V DLC was to play as Agent Trevor. It never fully came together, though it was about half done.

XXV. Absurd Ventures

• Focusing on open world single player games.

XXVI. Spy Game

• Lots of the potential spy-esque or espionage style games didn't pan out.

XXVII. Leaving Rockstar

• Admire Sam Houser (brother) for his drive and vision to see what games could become. Sam believed GTA would be as great of a franchise and industry as a movie franchise.
• "His drive and his vision early on to see what video games could become. He was the one who understood that video games were the next big thing."
• All you can do is to turn up.
• "You worked with your brother, Sam, for many years. What do you admire about him as a creative mind, as a human being?"
• "His drive and his vision early on to see what video games could become."

XXVIII. Other Potential Games

• Mentioned Spy and Knights as potential areas for exploration for future video games.

XXIX. Closing on Dan Houser

• Lock Yourself up." And, um, I was living in New York, had been living in New York for a few years. Wasn't sure if I was happy. I was going through a lot of personal dramas, as usual. And that was why I was looking at some of GTA IV again recently, and it's really dark. And I was like, "Ah, that's why." You know, I was a single and miserable, and I wasn't sure I wanted to stay in America. My life was in a lot of flux. As a company, we'd had all that Hot Coffee drama, so constantly thought we might be shut down in the middle of making that. You know, a lot of drama in the company, so it felt like, having had this run of success and, and relative personal stability from GTA III, Vice City, San Andreas, suddenly 2005, '6, '7, early '7, life felt very unsure.
• "So what do you do?" I literally, I was in South America... ...in Colombia where there was a war raging there. I was making a series of very poor life choices and a lack of life skills, age 25. My latest poor choice was to get up too early, because the police didn't start work till 9:00, but the muggers started at 8:00. And so I was out walking along the beach at 8:00 and these... guys, this Rasta who turned up, who I'd been talking to the day before, started trying to talk to me. And then two guys came up to talk to him, and I couldn't tell... if they were trying to mug him 'cause he owed them money or he brought me to them.
• Greatest Games: Tetris Gameboy is the greatest game.
• Meaning of life is to watch the universe and give intelligent commentary.
• Closing: Everything else is irrelevant outside of that. I do think metaphysics always trumps physics.