GTA development very organic, says dev

By Tom Bramwell Published 22 April, 2008

This "does lead to more difficulties".

Grand Theft Auto IV art director Aaron Garbut has shed some light on how a GTA game comes together behind the scenes, revealing that the process is actually very organic rather than carefully planned.

"There are essentially two routes you can go down in making a game: you can do a load of pre-production upfront and plan it all out in advance or you can just dive in and be a bit more organic," Garbut told Eurogamer, as you can see in part two of our exclusive interview.

And while you might imagine that the former is necessary on something as vast and all-encompassing as GTA IV, apparently you're wrong.

"The first option is the safest, it lets everyone know where they are from day one, it lets everyone know what needs done and it's the easiest to organise. But I think it tends to lead to fairly lifeless, soulless games, particularly when the games are more open like ours," Garbut told Eurogamer.

"We are a lot more organic, this is a conscious choice and it does lead to more difficulties along the way, it's harder on the team and it's trickier to keep track of but it leads to better games.

"It works because the core team know each other well and have worked together for a long time, we trust each other and know what to expect. Our whole ethos is to try things out, play with them, find what works best and move in that direction."

Elsewhere in the interview, we find out how Rockstar goes about making up fictional brands like Cluckin' Bell.

For the most part it's as you would expect - a well-organised design department - but occasionally it does come down to round-robin emails seeking inspiration. "Every so often an email will be sent out looking for ideas for businesses or slogans, which always ends up degenerating into pictures of cats and diarrhoea for some reason," said Garbut. "But ideas come from all those places."

All part of the massive development effort that goes into a GTA game. As Garbut put it, "It's all a big scary tangled web. But it works." See how well it works when the game comes out on 29th April, and check out part two of our interview for more.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (18) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • LazyDan #1 4 years ago

    GTA 4 was at least partially inspired by diarrhoea.



    This is the best day ever.

  • Moz #2 4 years ago

    Ok this has got to stop, it's even starting to get on my tits (and i don't get narked easyly)

    What the hell is the point of putting up this article when it's just a segment of the MAIN article currently on the page!!!!! Do EG think that some people are so lazy that they're not going to read the full article and need to pic some random snipet for them? This just seems a little pointless!!!!!!!

  • redneon Verified Programmer, SUMO Digital #3 4 years ago

    @Moz: "Do EG think that some people are so lazy that they're not going to read the full article and need to pic some random snipet for them?"

    Well, that's exactly what's happened in my case :) I am incredibly lazy. There was no way in this world I was going to read that LONG article.

    Thanks Eurogamer!

  • septimus #4 4 years ago

    I must admit I don't care to read what the art director is saying in his entirety. The odd interesting snippet is better when I have a couple of mins down time in work.

  • Moz #5 4 years ago

    But it only took 2 minutes to read the full article!!!

  • DDevil #6 4 years ago

    Not that I'm too lazy... Just too busy to read the whole thing right now.

  • BarcaAzul #7 4 years ago

    Clearly someone at Rockstar then is a Blackadder goes fourth fan then, as I think thats where Clucking bell originates from!!

  • monkie_king #8 4 years ago

    When's the review embargo end, EG? I haven't seen a date anywhere on all of the internets.

    Is the first rule of embargo dates that you don't talk about embargo dates?

  • fightman3b #9 4 years ago

    its a joke, we'll probably have the scene release for the 360 before these sites even get their fucking reviews up so i couldnt give a fuck. if they all want to play this 'oh we know but we cant post it yet' smugness then fuck em, i'll be playing it by the time they do post so wont even bother reading it then :)

  • peteb #10 4 years ago

    @monkie_king

    Is the first rule of embargo dates that you don't talk about embargo dates?

    No, the first rule is: "No Smoking"

  • redneon Verified Programmer, SUMO Digital #11 4 years ago

    @Moz: It's not very often I get two minutes free to read articles ;)

  • penhalion #12 4 years ago

    I believe the embargo lifts on friday. Though it's kind of wierd given the amount of pre-orders. It's almost as if they are afraid that people would cancel for some reason....

  • drxym #13 4 years ago

    All this hype and lack of reviews (except for a few moneyhat / shill ones) is getting quite boring. There are seven days until release. I wonder if Rockstar have the balls to lift the embargo before the 29th or if they intend to coast through on pure hype.
    Edited by 1 at 22/04/08 @ 16:09

  • asphaltcowboy #14 4 years ago

    /still waiting for some gameplay footage

  • Rodney #15 4 years ago

    The Embargo thing is working well for them, its almost by not promoting/hyping it, they fans are doing it for them with their anticipation.

    This franchise enjoys a lot of consumer confidence so people will buy it trusting it to be good.

    Im kind of liking it, when I start the game up next tuesday everything is going to be a new, I havnt got a clue what to expect.

  • Rodney #16 4 years ago

    The Embargo thing is working well for them, its almost by not promoting/hyping it, they fans are doing it for them with their anticipation.

    This franchise enjoys a lot of consumer confidence so people will buy it trusting it to be good.

    Im kind of liking it, when I start the game up next tuesday everything is going to be a new, I havnt got a clue what to expect.

  • HarryB #17 4 years ago

    pardon?

  • EzyRyder #18 4 years ago

    Organic like the food?

    Now, they are taking the mic, what they mean is that people have to work for 5 or 6 months in a row 12h a week. And I know that for a fact.
    Edited by 2 at 23/04/08 @ 00:55

  • jiveguy #19 4 years ago

    I'd love to work a 12 hour week and only do it for 5 or 6 months a year :(