WEBVTT

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- And of course, Michael's
from Grand Theft Auto V.

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And he's one of three
protagonists with also Franklin and

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Trevor. And you said that of the things
you're proud of creating and you

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think was a great accomplishment,
it was Red Dead Redemption 2,

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the ending of Red Dead Redemption 1,

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all of Grand Theft Auto IV,
and the middle part of Grand Theft Auto V

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when the three characters come together.
Can you speak to the Grand Theft Auto V?

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Is there some degree... I don't know
if you're a Dostoevsky guy, but...

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- A little bit. - Is there some aspect of

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the three protagonists, sort of,
you know, Brothers Karamazov,

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...Alyosha, Dmitry, and Ivan,
sort of, using the protagonists to

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explore the spectrum
of human nature and...

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- Yes, sure. -...just the tension
between them that allows you the, the,

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the three of them become
a character in themselves.

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- Their relationship.
- Their relationship.

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- is more... Yeah, it was, it was,
I think one of the reasons that,

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that the team did such...
That Grand Theft Auto is still so popular

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is we always tried as a group to really
innovate from game to game within

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the confines of what it was.
It was a crime, it was a crime drama,

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you know, began as a crime,
a crime sim in GTA 1 about stealing, you

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know, 2D top-down cars. And we always
tried to innovate with the narrative and

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innovate with the art direction,
innovate with every piece of the game.

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And I think having done,
you know, GTA IV, which

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was this kind of operatic journey
for this big lead character, and then

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these two extra stories that came
afterwards. So the challenge,

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the, the, the challenge was,
can we combine... Can we make a video

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game which tends to be very much
focused on one protagonist, but

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have multi-protagonists? And the technical

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challenge of moving from character
to character. The team

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did such an amazing job that I don't
think people realized how hard it was.

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But we would sit there just sort of
holding our heads 'cause they hurt so much

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around like, what happens if you do this,
then do that? It's just, this is so hard.

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Why have we, why have we decided to do
this? It's horrible. And then it all came

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together. But I think
the idea was to develop

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three characters who do feel like
characters. They don't just feel like

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philosophical, you know,
psychological avatars. But where

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one is really, really driven
by ego, one is really driven by

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id, and one is really driven
by trying to get ahead. So some kind

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of representation of the super-ego and see
how that feels when they all play off

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against each other. - One of the most
upvoted questions on Reddit about GTA V,

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From a fan, "GTA V is my favorite
game ever made. I spent over

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1,000 hours in the world
of GTA V and GTA Online. GTA

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IV is a hard second or third.
It never ceases to impress me. When you

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lead a team of over 1,000 people
to make a masterpiece like GTA V

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or Red Dead Redemption 2, how do
you ensure that the bar of perfection

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is always

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met? How's that even possible? We know
the answer isn't money, because there's

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other studios with a lot of money,
and they are two decades behind

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Rockstar." So what does it take
to create these worlds, to create these

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incredibly compelling games and stories?

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- I think the cult- I mean,
certainly when I was at Rockstar, I was a

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worker amongst workers. You know,
the culture was one of excellence and

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tried to provide creative clarity.
And people would just, you

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know... And also an ambition
to make... I think we were

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like... We thought GTA III
could be really popular.

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Really popular to us
meant, quite honestly,

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it's gonna sell two
or three million copies.

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And we thought we were making something
pretty innovative. I mean, we knew we were

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making something innovative, but we
didn't know if people would understand how

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innovative it was. And then when
we got the chance to make Vice City,

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and to try and repeat it, I think
every time from then on the team was

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very driven to make something
better. And to use, this was

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long before we had lots of resources,
to use time and whatever money we had to

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always put impressive stuff
on the screen, always think

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about what we can do to push the

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medium of video games and the sort
of medium of building fake worlds further.

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And that was always... You know,
there was a, it was, you know, both

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clarity of, "Here's
what we're trying to do.

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Here's what the tone
of the game is going to

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be. Here's how features will fit into
that, and why these features would

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work and these features wouldn't work."
Because fundamentally by 2002, you

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could put pretty much any feature into
a game you wanted. It wasn't a question,

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it wasn't a technical limitation.
It was just making it cohesive. And

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then it was also just everyone
committing to a culture of excellence.

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- Navid Khansari, an award-winning
director and virtual reality game maker,

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who worked with you on a number of Grand
Theft Auto games, spoke highly about

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his time working with you.
Quote, "We always worked ourselves to

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the bone, but it wasn't coming
from the top down. Sam and Dan always

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rolled up their sleeves, and they
were always there. They never left us

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holding the bag. We all thought
we were making badass shit,

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so it didn't matter how hard we worked."
So I'm sure there were some tough grinds.

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- I think finishing it is certainly...
It's tough, but it also

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is intensely rewarding.
And you get something done, and you've

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made something.
And that feeling is, as you say, really,

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really incredible. I mean, it can
sometimes feel a bit empty as well because

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it's... when you're finished, you're like,
"Then my life's got nothing to it,"

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and then you have to...

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You know, but that's the same with
any big undertaking that you take.

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I don't think there are...

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You know, when you're working that hard,
you do not have a good work/life balance.

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But the truth is, you're not
working that hard all of the time.

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So you just have to manage
it slightly differently.

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- Man, that's such

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such a heavy thing about
the human experience.

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I've talked to Olympic gold medal winners,

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and many of them face real depression
after they win the gold medal.

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because they've been pursuing

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a thing that they deeply care about.
This has been everything, and

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they're so truly happy to do it,
and then it's like, "What else

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is there in life?" What, compared
to this, what else is there? So that's

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the ups and downs of life.
You need the darkness and you need the

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lows to really experience
the highs. Let me ask you