Oxford and Dundee. Yes - Oxford and Dundee.
When most people envisage the origin of the Grand Theft Auto series, they probably see radical, extravagant, hipster-like young American kids whose flair and creativity is mirrored by the tall, piercing skyscrapers of a major American city rising behind them, accentuating their master plans that will not only change the gaming landscape for ever, but will usher video-games into pop culture alongside music, books and films.
What those people don't know is that the origins of GTA don't come from youngsters with large glasses, but instead, an ordinary Scotsman from Dundee and two posh, English and London-born brothers who are Oxford University graduates.
In the 90s, when the Scottish game designer, David Jones, was busy of coming up with the primitive rendition of GTA (he originally conceived it as a racing game) the prep school/Oxford graduates, Dan and Sam Houser, were embracing their insatiable lust for East Coast hip-hop at the now defunct BMG Music. Not exactly what their top-of-the-line education entailed - Dan graduated from Oxford with a degree in Geography and Sam studied History. But just like Grand Theft Auto's phenomenal success in the 2000s proved, life can certainly be unpredictable.
David had trouble getting funding for his digital concept. No publisher had the balls to touch the dark, mature themes GTA represented. Fortunately for our Scotsman, Dan and Sam's artistic tastes had a penchant for violence and crime. As children, the two had grown up watching and idolising American crime films. Anyone who's played the GTA games will notice that central parts of the games are inspired by classic crime movies/television. When Sam and Dan got wind of this game where the player played as the protagonist who had the ability to fuck shit up, it appealed to their artistically deviant ways. They were able to secure funding for the project with the newly established BMG video-game department. They proceeded to work as producers, writers and directors of the game.
When the three Brits collaborated in 1995, they created Grand Theft Auto, a video-game that spat in the face of good-natured behaviour not just in the interactive entertainment area, but also society at large. The player didn't play as a protagonist who had unquestioning morality (the norm for 99% of action games) he played as an anti-hero who would steal and kill anyone (a bad guy, a cop, a civilian - he didn't make distinctions) on the whim.
Grand Theft Auto, the first game that was released in 1996, was primitive by even those days'standards. It was a top-down, 2D bird's eye view experience. It looked like something that belonged in the late 80s. But it was nevertheless an underground hit. It was new, bold, radical - a proverbial fuck you to society. And society responded in kind. Politicians in the United States called for an outright ban and in certain countries, they obliged the wish conservatively inclined politicians Stateside yearned for. GTA was banned in Brazil and other countries.
I first played Grand Theft Auto 1 in 2000, courtesy of a childhood best friend. As a wide-eyed ten-year-old who wanted to be an astronaut one week and a game designer the next, I marveled at the chaos that was available at my fingertips; I loved running over pedestrians, blowing up police cars with tanks and serving as a hitman for power-hungry sociopaths. The game defiled society's norms and as a kid who had a penchant for dares, it appealed to me.
Despite the first GTA being an underground hit that was widely condemned by politicians in the 1990s, its primitive, outdated 2D game engine limited it to the hardcore PC gamers who were savvy enough to devour gems that didn't sail by in the mainstream river. There were three more Grand Theft Auto games on the 2D engine in the late 90s - GTA 2, set in the future and the expansion pack of GTA London, set in 1970s London. As the ambitious ten-year-old, I played both games. I was infatuated. It wasn't until October 2001 that I fell in love.
October 2001 was the month of Grand Theft Auto 3. October 2001 is a time the video-game industry, contemporary pop culture and I, will remember for some time. GTA 3 was something the world didn't expect. The video-game publisher, Take-Two Interactive, bought the game from the financially suffering BMG and the Houser Brothers (David Jones left the series to work on another project) ditched the outdated 2D engine. They created the now world renowned Rockstar Games, now a video-game developer and publisher in its own right. Under Rockstar games, this new, ridiculously ambitious Grand Theft Auto featured an immersive, 3D, tightly compressed and fictional rendition of New York as the game world.
It was a living and breathing city that was beautifully designed - pedestrians milling about reacted accordingly when you bumped their shoulders; piercing skyscrapers formed the black back-drop against the glare of the rising and setting sun; there was a chilling, ambient day and night cycle that was supported by moody curtains of fog and melting silver of rain; ambulances, police cars and fire engines wailed to the scene when the protagonist caused chaos; a long, strong, gripping storyline was supported by a mosaic of engrossing characters brilliantly voiced by renowned Hollywood actors; seven professionally produced radio stations added joy, atmosphere and nostalgia and most importantly, there were no limits. Prior GTA 3, games constricted the player with unremitting linearity - the game was the sergeant and you were the private. GTA changed that. This digital, polygon world was your playground. It was yours to do whatever you wished.
As an eleven-year-old who was experiencing his first year at secondary school, I still have fond memories of losing countless hours as I cruised through the roads of Staunton Island, a fleet of law enforcement on my tail as a badass hip-hop tune pounded on Game Radio. I still have fond memories of rushing home from school and going to a friend's house so that I could help him with the most difficult missions. I still have memories of singing the songs from the game's addictive radios with religious fanaticism.
GTA 3 did not only revolutionalise the gaming industry, but it also brought the series onto the map on an unprecedented scale that the gaming industry was yet to witness. People who had zero interest in games would sit down in front of the PlayStation, jack a car and gleefully perform drive-bys on Yardies, the cacophony of police sirens screaming behind them as the luminescent glare of a police helicopter searchlight kissed the chrome of their damaged sports car. GTA 3 became the best-selling game on the PS2 until the series' 1980s' set successor, Vice City, was released the following year.
The game's completely redesigned game world added a much more visceral, more realistic element in comparison with the earlier games, and it also heightened the public outcry from society's adults. The Sun and The Daily Mail called for an outright ban of this monstrosity - politicians in Washington D.C. were holding meetings with the aim of thwarting this evil crime simulator. What those detractors didn't realise was that their crusades were a paradox - they wanted to destroy GTA but they only served to make it more successful. Their outcries intensified GTA's exposure; more attention meant more sales.
Many open-world games that were described as "GTA clones" due to the game's features consisting of open-world cities where the player could drive any vehicle and could kill anyone he wanted, followed soon after GTA 3's release. As with most imitations, none of them were able to recapture the same magic of Rockstar Games' baby.
GTA 3 was only the beginning of the series' astronomic success. The sequels on the PS2 era, Vice City and San Andreas, added and improved on GTA 3. From the sun-kissed, bikini-clad beaches of Vice City that reminds players of soothing, electric 80s pop to the sprawling mass of environments in the fictional state of San Andreas, the GTA series cemented its place as the champion of the gaming world, San Andreas holding the record for the most sales on the PS2. GTA 4, the highly detailed, HD revisit of Liberty City on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, proceeded in the fashion of its predecessors - it broke the record for the most sold units in a week after release and earned perfect review scores from most reviewers. To this day, the GTA series has sold more than 114 million units and the Houser Brothers have a net worth of 80 million dollars each.
The GTA series has been described as a cultural phenomenon and whilst I certainly detest to ascribe to loosely labelled cliches, I would have to agree. When you listen to a track on YouTube that was been featured on one of the immensely popular radio stations on a GTA game, there will be a host of GTA players that will comment on how they heard the track on one of the games. When there's a real-life high speed chase that features a police shootout, many think of Grand Theft Auto.
There is no other game series that creates the same buzz the Grand Theft Auto series does. Prior release of a game, it seems the entire video-game industry is bewitched by a spell that has its inhabitants drooling from the mouth, eyes wide and brains alert for the smallest details concerning the game.
As the world impatiently waits for GTA 5, set for release in Autumn 2013, if there's one thing that the GTA series has proved in its 17-year-old lifespan, its that when it comes to digital polygons, crime sure does pay.
