Channel 4Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser has discussed the future of gaming and how useful he thinks AI is in today’s climate of game development.
Speaking during an appearance on Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch show to promote his novel, A Better Paradise, Houser, who departed Rockstar in 2020 and subsequently founded new company Absurd Ventures, commented on where he thought games as a medium could go next.
Games in danger of being “distracted by money”
“With all things, it can either go somewhere really interesting or somewhere that gets overly focused on making money,” Houser said, adding, “There’s always that danger with any commercial art form that they get distracted by money. I think there’s still a big ceiling creatively to make living narrative experiences.”
When asked what direction he believed games would take, Houser, somewhat contradicting himself, said, “I think they’ll both win. There’ll be two paths… we’ve already seen that in spaces in the games industry where they both kind of win.”
Later in the interview, Houser confirmed that a game set in the universe of A Better Paradise has been in development for 18 months. When asked whether AI was being used during development, he said that the technology wasn’t as useful as some might believe.
“We are dabbling in using AI, but the truth is, a lot of it is not as useful as some other companies would have you believe yet. It’s not going to solve all of the problems.”
Rockstar’s next game, Grand Theft Auto 6, is scheduled for release on November 19, 2026. Numerous protests have taken place outside the company’s various offices throughout November after it fired over 30 employees for gross misconduct.