Kotaku
Yesterday evening Jeff Williams, former Rockstar employee and current blogger, wrote up quite an interesting post about his time at both Take-Two and Rockstar.
Life During Wartime Working at Rockstar Games gives outsiders an interesting first-hand look into what it was like to work at Rockstar during their biggest boom years. Williams worked at the company from a bit after GTA 3 through to the beginning of GTA 4, he left, he says, because of the company's "inefficiency and unwarranted arrogance" and because of their "lack if taste in video games. Manhunt, it seems, played a big role in his decision to quit.
Some choice, sorta out of context, quotes on the jump:
Every Rockstar project turned into a huge clusterfuck. I mainly blame this on a horrendously inefficient company structure combined with a few individuals who thought they were hot shit but really didn't know anything about either video games or marketing. By that time, Rockstar was arrogant to the point of absurdity.
Every project involved at least four different approvals - Scott, Jenny Gross, Dan Houser, and Terry Donovan. If any one of them requested a change, the project would be sent back. Often they didn't communicate and didn't agree with each other, so we'd do one change only to have someone else up the chain ask us to change it back. Then an argument would inevitably ensue. And when I say "argument", I mean "screaming at the top of your lungs and throwing objects around the office" type of argument.
And honestly, I was pretty vocal in telling my superiors that while I'd do whatever they asked me to do (within reason), I didn't support Manhunt's release. It may sound surprising, but there was almost a mutiny at the company over that game. It was Rockstar North's pet project - most of us at Rockstar Games wanted no part of it. We'd already weathered plenty of controversy over GTA3 and Vice City - we were no strangers to it - but Manhunt felt different. With GTA, we always had the excuse that the gameplay was untethered - you never had to hurt anybody that wasn't a "bad guy" in one of the missions. You could play completely ethically if you wanted, and the game was parody anyway, so lighten up.Manhunt, though, just made us all feel icky. It was all about the violence, and it was realistic violence. We all knew there was no way we could explain away that game. There was no way to rationalize it. We were crossing a line.
You may ask if I knew about "Hot Coffee", the sex scene included in the game. The truth is I did. I don't think most of the company knew, but I was in good with one of the guys closer to the game than I was and he had seen the scenes in question and told me. He couldn't believe it himself, and just assumed the scenes would be removed before the game was released. Technically they were, but they were still accessible in the game for the technologically apt. One of Rockstar's recurring problems was underestimating the technical ability of its PC game customers. In short, I don't think "hot coffee" was intentional - or at least I don't believe those scenes were intended to be found. Rockstar just didn't think anyone would go to the trouble.
I turned 30 while I was there and my view of the world began to change. I lost patience with that lifestyle, and I became infuriated with the company's inefficiency and unwarranted arrogance. Not to mention their lack of taste in video games! Rockstar thought they were better than everybody else, but they weren't good enough for me.
Sounds like someone has a book in them.
Life During Wartime- Working at Rockstar Games [Alphabet City, thanks Startaku]
