Rockstar Games expanded its workforce to 4711 employees across 12 studios to complete Grand Theft Auto VI after 8 years of development. According to an in depth report by Bloomberg Businessweek, the production required 2 major delays, strict office attendance mandates, and a complete restructuring of creative leadership. Financial analysts project the game will sell 40,000,000 copies and generate over $3,000,000,000 in revenue during its first 4 months on the market.
Following the departure of cofounder Dan Houser, creative direction moved to a 3 person leadership team consisting of Rob Nelson, Aaron Garbut, and Phil Hooker. The production originally used the internal codename Project Americas with plans to include sections of both North and South America, but directors narrowed the scope down to a detailed recreation of Vice City and its surroundings. Development debates focused on balancing visual fidelity with convenience, including whether players should manually take items off store shelves or purchase goods instantly. The primary mechanical focus centers on 2 protagonists, Jason and Lucia, who share open world activities, robberies, and conversational dialogue via specialized artificial intelligence systems.
Rockstar delayed the game twice to avoid the extreme overtime that affected staff during the creation of Red Dead Redemption II. Jennifer Kolbe, the head of publishing, told Bloomberg Businessweek that studio management focused on schedule adjustments and headcount growth rather than excessive work hours.
We are not going to finish this game by crunching.
Rockstar established a brand new office in Los Angeles dedicated entirely to creating and animating nonplayable characters. Total company employment climbed from 2441 workers in 2018 to 4711 people. To prevent digital security breaches after early gameplay footage leaked online, executives eliminated remote work and required employees to work inside physical offices 5 days a week. The company also faced legal challenges after firing 34 employees over allegations of sharing proprietary data on an external server, an action that former staff contested as an effort to block union organizing.
Its predecessor Grand Theft Auto V sold 230,000,000 copies, while Grand Theft Auto Online generates roughly $500,000,000 in annual revenue for parent company Take Two Interactive. Chief executive officer Strauss Zelnick approved both release delays to ensure the software met internal quality standards. Studio directors stated that the proprietary game engine and content tools created over this 8 year project will accelerate future production pipelines, preventing another multi year gap between major software releases.
