Writes The Times:

There's a Western game in the works for next spring, and the next GTA to think of. "We'll think of a city first, then the characters," says Houser. The script he will end up co-writing will run to around 1,000 pages, nearly ten times as much as a feature film.

There's plenty of other interesting quotes inside the interview, including Houser's reaction to being the punching bag/pariah every time a violent video game is brought up in popular culture. Also, and I didn't know this, but in The Ballad of Gay Tony, he and Sam put a saxophonist in the park in Liberty City as a tribute to their father, a jazz artist who plays the instrument.

The Driving Force Behind Grand Theft Auto [Times of London via GameDaily]

Turns out they have, and they didn't like the mental image. Says Dan Houser, the Rockstar vice president:

We don't believe that the Grand Theft Auto games, which are massive in scope and structurally complex, can be adequately compressed into a two-hour movie, It seems obvious to us that maintaining the long-term integrity of any entertainment property has been dependent on not making substandard spin-off products to people whose primary interest is making a quick buck. If we ever decide to do a film, it will be because we have resolved our creative doubts, and while retaining enough control to ensure that if the movie is terrible, at least we will know we ruined the property ourselves.

While that doesn't mean never-ever-never will they do a GTA movie, it does mean that you shouldn't expect one while the franchise is still producing games, thriving creatively, and a leading brand in its space - which is when third parties would be looking to make a fast buck. It sounds like the Housers would do a deal only at the end of the franchise's lifespan, when a bomb couldn't harm anything other than people's memory of the game.

Video Game Publishers Microsoft, Ubisoft Invading Hollywood's Turf [Los Angeles Times via GTA4.net, thanks Roy.]

I couldn't tell if Sam and Dan together count as one influential person, or if they took two whole spots on the list. But this is their write-up, penned by Matt Selman, the executive producer of "The Simpsons." He portrays the Housers as social commentators whose work is, for its time, as meaningful as Dickens.

But what makes the Housers' creation unparalleled is that their games have a take on American cultural history. A smart take. A take that solidifies the culture's vision of its recent past. Was it a prominent film or book or record that defined how we look back on gang-era Los Angeles? No, it was a video game that uses movies, music and writing to a greater effect. Who better summarized and satirized the drug-dealing Miami of the '80s? Or the New York City of now? The Housers are doing the work of Tom Wolfe, creating tapestries of modern times as detailed as those of Balzac or Dickens.

Next week: Time publishes 100 letters from gamers who wonder if they're the only ones who thought Grand Theft Auto IV was overrated.

Sam and Dan Houser - The 2009 Time 100 [Time, also Time illustration. Thanks Mike M.]

Houser beats out Nintendo's Hideki Konno and Shigeru Miyamoto, both of whom placed in the top ten alongside industry movers and shakers Mark Healey from Media Molecule, Jun Takeuchi from Capcom and Rod Humble of EA's Sims label.

How does Edge quantify "hot"?

It says the primary factor in determining who's hot and who's not is, bluntly, market success. Houser obviously had a good year, market success-wise with Grand Theft Auto IV.

"Critical reception and contributions to the art and craft of development are also weighed heavily" notes edge, which might explain why some developers associated with better selling products have had to give up the top spot to Mr. Houser. (He placed #9 on the list, with BioShock lead Ken Levine securing #1 on last year's list.)

There are plenty of faces that you should be familiar with on the list if you want to appear informed at your next video game cocktail party.

The Hot 100 Game Developers of 2009 [Edge Online]

When an interviewer for the UK Telegraph asks Houser if it will be long before video game writers are afforded the same respect as TV and film writers enjoy, Dan neatly explains that he'd rather not have it.

“I hope it's long,” he says. “It's really fun at the moment because we're not in any Academy and the medium's not codified. There's no accepted way of doing anything so that give us enormous pleasure because we can make it up as we go along. Movies and TV and books have become so structured in the way they have to approach things. Not working in that environment gives us enormous freedom. I'd rather keep the freedom and not have the respect.”

The man makes a very good point. Though video games are gaining popularity every day, they still don't have to deal with the rigid standards enforced for films and television shows in most countries. The multiple layers of scrutiny that those mediums undergo are something that the game industry has thankfully avoided so far.

Note that I said so far. This would be a good place for a little dramatic incidental music.

Dan Houser interview: Rockstar Games's writer for GTA 4 and The Lost And Damned [Telegraph via Games Industry]

The new employment agreements come with a new incentive plan for the Rockstar Games label based primarily on a profit arrangement, meaning the team now gets a cut of sales, rather than simply getting paid for their work. Sounds like a rather sweet deal. Rockstar co-founder Sam Houser agrees.

“The entire Rockstar team has always been dedicated to making groundbreaking games with unprecedented production values, style and depth. We are excited to continue our partnership with the new management team at Take-Two, who have helped us to protect the unique atmosphere that fosters creativity and innovation."

Take that, Michael Pachter!

Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. Announces New Long-Term Agreements with Rockstar Games’ Senior Creative Talent

NEW YORK—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTWO) today announced that it has established a new incentive compensation program for the Rockstar Games label that is primarily based on a profit sharing arrangement, and at the same time has entered into new long-term employment agreements with members of the creative team of its wholly-owned Rockstar Games publishing label. The new employment agreements have an initial term ending on January 31, 2012.

Among the Rockstar Games team members entering into new long-term employment agreements are Sam Houser, Dan Houser and Leslie Benzies, as well as several other key members of the creative team behind the renowned Grand Theft Auto series. This team has been instrumental in the development and success of Take-Two’s extensive portfolio of multi-million unit internally owned franchises.

In addition, Take-Two has agreed to fund the future development of certain new intellectual property to be owned by a newly formed company controlled by key Rockstar Games team members and published exclusively by Take-Two.

Strauss Zelnick, Chairman of Take-Two, commented, “We’re delighted with the extension and expansion of Take-Two’s relationship with the Rockstar team. The talent and creativity at Rockstar are unparalleled in our industry. Their dedication to making extraordinary games has captured the enthusiasm of millions of fans around the world and has contributed enormously to establishing Take-Two as a force in the global video game marketplace and advancing our goal to become the most creative and most innovative company in the industry. In addition, this new chapter in our successful relationship further aligns the interests of our creative teams with those of our shareholders.”

Sam Houser, Founder and Executive Producer of Rockstar Games, added, “The entire Rockstar team has always been dedicated to making groundbreaking games with unprecedented production values, style and depth. We are excited to continue our partnership with the new management team at Take-Two, who have helped us to protect the unique atmosphere that fosters creativity and innovation."

[The Wii] didn’t feel natural to us, I guess. It really was that the DS felt like it had a lot of interesting challenges that would be totally different from what we’d done in the past. The stylus and the chance to use minigames in that way was really interesting and exciting to us, and we thought we could integrate seamlessly between those two modes. And it would be the chance to make something really good on a handheld with our handheld-focused team. That was really why we went that way. We haven’t really done any concrete, major thinking about the Wii, one way or another. They’re sort of separate issues.

That and the money, Dan. Don't forget the printing of money.

GTA: Chinatown Wars [Nintendo Power, via Nintendo Everything]

Most of the people who hate us are people it is truly an honor to be hated by — reactionary creeps with strange agendas — and the Daily Mail. Most people who know about modern pop culture know about GTA and like or dislike it on its own merits...

I think we [Sam and his brother and co-founder Dan] are both depressed at how boring we really are and how unexciting even the worse fabrications and exaggerations are when you read about them. None of it seems very rock and roll, so we find it a little sad, when there are probably better stories that could be written about both us and the industry/medium. No sharks, groupies or pounds of coke or anything fun at all. We read like angry dorks, which might be true, but is certainly not very exciting.

So all you haters, just think of Rockstar as angry dorks. That, and take deep breaths.

Grand Theft Auteur - Part 1 [Develop Mag via CVG]

Knights of the Sandbox City [Develop]

"It's about economics. We take market share and audience from other media - video game makers are challenging the Hollywood hegemony - so they're going to fight us. But I'm not going to fight them. I believe your Constitution protects us."

When interviewer Scott Alexander asked Houser about inequity in the way adult games are treated as compared with film and other media, Houser said:

"These are works of fiction. Playing a game that features violence is no different from choosing to see a violent movie. We're not trying to create a 'here's real life' sensation in a video game; it's "you're the star of a movie. We want to re-create the sensations you have watching movies. We're putting those in a video game."

When asked to isolate why Rockstar's games seem to provoke a swath of mainstream anger from certain circles, Houser said:

"We're trying to give gamers freedom. It boils down to critics not liking the fact that people can choose to do 'bad' things in a fantasy world - which to me is silly."

The full interview is print only, so to read the whole thing you'd have to look at a copy of June's Playboy. You know, for the article, of course.

So ... now what? Analysts quoted in a Friday San Francisco Chronicle story still think the deal will get done. Michael Pachter cited the Wall Street Journal story that places Rockstar's Dan Houser in the pivot, as his contract with Take-Two is up next year and he's open to EA ownership. Pachter's reasoning: Houser would broker the deal in hopes of being rewarded by his new employer. EA talks about how GTA IV's success was already built into its offer to Take-Two, so surely GTA IV's success is already built into Take-Two's relationship with Houser. A grateful EA might be willing to throw in a premium Houser couldn't negotiate otherwise.

Even though the deadline was not extended, as some suspected, that by itself doesn't preclude another offer. Weekend deadline negotiations are usually for labor unions and management. They certainly aren't covered by amateurs like yours truly, or the Agence France Presse writer who called the game "Grand Theft Auto IV: Liberty City Stories." We're not that well sourced. Once the regular writers and analysts get back in the office this week, someone will say something.

Deadline Passes in EA Bid to Buy Take-Two [AFP/Yahoo News, via Joystiq]

It's a huge talk. I can't digest it all into bullet points for you. But he delves into the origin of the 3D GTA titles, more or less saying that Take Two's 1999 acquisition of DMA (which became Rockstar, and now Rockstar North) was to answer an internal dispute of whether Grand Theft Auto could be done in 3D. We know the answer to that.

Fritz asks Houser if, at any point, the creators doubted that the level of detail put into GTA III would even matter, much less become the baseline expectation of the sandbox genre as we know it. Houser answers with a visionary's conviction:

I remember when we were talking about 60 or 80 different speaking parts, I remember it was such a big production issue, but the thing we never spoke about was, "Are people going to care about it?" Our attitude always was, "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing. If they don't' like it..."

I agree wholeheartedly. Some first person games, I feel like I'm looking into a shoebox diorama of the world where I'm playing. Admittedly, a well rendered, often fun diorama. But it makes me wonder again why they ever did the first-person free-look in GTA III and Vice City (I will never stop complaining about that.)

There's tons more in the full interview.

Dan Houser's very extended interview about everything "Grand Theft Auto IV" and Rockstar [Variety]