Rockstar’s final episodic content for “Grand Theft Auto IV” hits Xbox Live on Oct. 29 – and today the company is giving the first peak at what the add-on will look like with the trailer "You’ll Always Be The King of This Town".

And, not to spoil the fun, but it might help to have your boogie shoes handy - along with an extra wardrobe. The Ballad of Gay Tony” will also bring the usual level of chaos to Liberty City.

As Luis Lopez, part-time hoodlum and full-time assistant to legendary nightclub impresario Tony Prince (aka "Gay Tony"), players will struggle with the competing loyalties of family and friends, and with the uncertainty about who is real and who is fake in a world in which everyone has a price.

The downloadable content will cost $19.99 (or 1600 MS Points). It will also be available as part of a retail release called “Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City”. That disc will feature the content from the first episodic release (“The Lost and Damned”) as well as “The Ballad of Gay Tony” on one disc for $39.99. It will not require players to own a copy of “GTA IV” to play. 

Despite analyst predictions, it looks like we won’t see a new full-scale installment in the “Grand Theft Auto” franchise next year.

Take Two Interactive Software shot down the whispers today in a call with analysts after delaying “Bioshock 2” and drastically lowering its earnings expectation for the year.

“Our goal for fiscal year 2010 is to operate the company profitably  … without a new multi-platform ‘Grand Theft Auto’ release,” said Ben Feder, president and CEO of Take Two.

Pressed by analysts on whether that would mean a new GTA is completely out of the question for next year, he added “I don’t think any more clarification is required.”

The chatter about “GTA V” started in March, when Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter predicted the game would hit next year.

"When the next version of GTA comes out in late 2010 (not yet announced, but a reasonable expectation), there should be an installed base of approximately 60 million consoles in the addressable market,” he wrote. “We don't think it is reasonable to estimate that sales of GTA will double the prior version, but we think that a 25-30% penetration is reasonable, suggesting 15-18 million units sold."

More downloadable content is likely next year, but it now appears the next ‘full’ game won’t be hitting until sometime in 2011. 

It's hard to blame Take Two for keeping the game in 2011. For years, the company has tried to prove it's not a one-trick pony, but investors have remained doubtful. If they're able to pull in record profits without a "GTA" in that year's release list, they may finally convert some of those skeptics into believers.  

It's always interesting when companies that very rarely talk to the press suddenly start aggressively doing so.

Case in point: Nintendo of America, which generally has a corporate policy to never say anything interesting to a journalist, talking to two major game blogs after the most recent NPD report showed that "Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars" bombed in its first month on sale.

VP of licensing and head of third party publisher relations Steve Singer spoke to MTV Multiplayer; VP of corporate affairs Denise Kaigler talked to Kotaku.

Their message: Everything is fine here. No need to worry.

They certainly have some valid points. Kaigler noted that "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" for the DS sold only 36,000 units its first month, but in the 16 months hence has moved a decent 500,000 units. Singer said that "Spore" and "Lego Star Wars" had similar sales curves where they sold the vast majority of their units after the first month (unlike, say, "Grand Theft Auto IV").

But the very fact that these two are out talking, instead of just letting Rockstar and its owner Take-Two defend the game's performance, belies their seeming confidence. When Nintendo executives talk, they have a good reason. Here, they clearly want to send a message to hard core gamers and third party developers: Big franchises and M-rated games can work on the DS, despite the evidence to the contrary. Don't give up on us. We want to expand the DS(i) to as large an audience as possible and rake in as much licensing revenue from a wide variety of games as we can. That requires dispelling the (well justified) stereotype that our portable console is only for kids and casual players.

So we know what their message is. But is it accurate? It's a stretch, to say the least. Singer seems to be missing the point when he makes comparisons to "Spore" and "Lego Star Wars." Those games were both rated E.

I don't think anybody believes that big franchises can't work on the DS. After all, Mario and Zelda are both pretty big franchises. Even the critically derided "Guitar Hero: On Tour" did well.

The problem, most of us think, is that "Chinatown Wars" was rated M. And a very hard M at that. "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" is the best comparison, but even that game was rated T. Shooting people in war is very different than dealing drugs and killing cops.

In addition, "Chinatown Wars" got much better reviews than any of those three games.

There are 26.3 million DS's in the U.S., more than the 360 and PS3 combined and almost twice the number of PSPs. In its first two weeks, "Chinatown Wars" sold 97% fewer units than "GTA IV" did in its first five days. And the new game had an 83% larger potential audience.

Of course we would expect console versions of "GTA" to sell better, since they're bigger and better and similar to what gamers love. But even the two "GTA" games for PSP, as I previously reported, sold more than "Chinatown Wars" in their first months to much smaller hardware bases.

If "Chinatown Wars" really does follow the same sales pattern as "Modern Warfare," it could do OK. That would put it on track to sell over 1.2 million units. But that's still not a "Pokemon"-size blockbuster.

The fact is, "Chinatown Wars" had everything going for it: A very well known brand, amazing reviews, and a big marketing campaign. Those should all add up to a big launch. But they didn't. Are you willing to bet there are a million adult owners of a DS who weren't interested in "Chinatown Wars" last month but will buy it at some point in the future? I'm not.

It looks like gamers just aren't ready for mature content on the DS.

Despite stellar reviews, a major marketing campaign and one of the biggest brand name in video games, "Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars" bombed last week. According to new data from the NPD Group, the DS-only version of "GTA" sold a pathetic 89,000 units in its first two weeks on sale.

It was the first effort by any publisher to bring a huge, M-rated franchise that has previously existed solely on living room consoles to Nintendo's portable device. It seemed hard to argue with the logic: The DS is the most popular console in the country and the world by far, with 26.3 million sold in the U.S. The conventional wisdom was that only kids' games and casual titles, as well as ones made by Nintendo, sold well. "GTA" publisher Rockstar decided to challenge that wisdom with "Chinatown Wars." Bad decision.

By contrast, last April's "Grand Theft Auto IV" sold 2.85 million units in just its first few days to a combined Xbox 360 / Playstation 3 install base of 14.4 million. Rockstar's previous two efforts to move "GTA" to a portable device: 2005's "Liberty City Stories" and 2006's "Vice City Stories," sold 158,000 and 108,000 units, respectively, during their first month on sale. And those were both for the PSP, which had (and continues to have) a much lower install base than the DS.

Even the Xbox 360 exclusive downloadable "Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned" has, I'm told, sold about 1 million units to that console's 13.5 million owners.

Rockstar has to be devastated by those numbers. And any third party publisher thinking about taking an M-rated franchise to the DS has to be paying attention and thinking twice.

Other important points from NPD video game sales data for March:

-Nintendo's actually sees a... DECLINE. Yes, sales for the Wii and DS both fell in March. It's the first time that has happened since, well, as long as I can find. Given that "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" came out last year, it's understandable on the Wii count. And DS sales have been pretty much flat for a while.

Combine that with the Wii's already infamous slip to second place in Japan last month behind the PS3, thanks mainly to "Resident Evil 5," and it's easy to see why investors have become concerned and Nintendo shares fell 17% on Friday.

But let's keep it all in perspective. Nintendo's sales are still extraordinary. The Wii and DS sold over 1 million units combined last month with no holidays, not even Easter, to boost them, and only one major DS release, "Pokemon Platinum" (which sold a very healthy 805,000 units). And library titles like "Wii Fit," "Wii Play," and "Mario Kart Wii" continue to sell extraordinarily well. Nintendo is like a team that has gone undefeated for several seasons and finally loses a game or two. It's not exactly time to become a Sony Cubs fan. I would have to agree with Barrons that at this point, Nintendo stock is being oversold.

-Industry revenue was down a whopping 17% for the month. But again, that's overblown. As NPD fairly pointed, Easter wasn't in March this year and there was nothing remotely on the scale of "Smash Bros.," which sold 2.7 million units last year.

Still, hardware sales were soft across the board. Every single console except the Xbox 360, which was supply constrained last year, saw a sales drop. So while things aren't -17% bad, they're not good.

The more notable figure may be that for the first quarter, industry revenue grew 0%. As in it was flat. That may be the kind of year 2009 is going to be: low or no growth. Not bad in a recession, but pretty amazing after 19% growth last year.

-"Resident Evil 5" launched big. No surprise there. Over 1.5 million units on PS3 and 360. The only other solid debut was "Halo Wars," which started off with 639,000 units. "Killzone 2," which launched at the very end of February, falls in that category as well. For Feb. and March combined, it sold 592,000 units.

-Sony won the baseball battle. "MLB '09: The Show" sold 305,000 units on Playstation 3, easily beating 2K's "Major League Baseball 2K9" on either console (the 360 version sold 205,000 and the PS3 sold less than that).

-Though they launched in the last week of the month, making it a little tougher to hit the top 10, neither Universal's "Wanted" nor Midway and Ubisoft's "Wheelman," starring Vin Diesel, tore up the charts enough to sell over 200,000 units. It's safe to say neither one will be a major hit.

As everyone prepares for NPD's report of what was likely a slow- to no-growth March for the video game industry (thanks largely to tough comparisons to last year's mega-hit "Super Smash Bros. Brawl"), I'm particularly struck by this point made by research firm EEDAR in its sales preview:

I've previously written about how important I think DLC is becoming to the Xbox 360 / Playstation 3 business model. To take a recent example, I'm told by a good source (though Rockstar hasn't confirmed) that "Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned" has sold around one million units on Xbox Live. That's over $20 million in gross revenue and would be approximately $14 million for Rockstar, if it hadn't already done a $50 million deal for two DLC chapters with Microsoft.

"Call of Duty: World at War" similarly sold a million-plus units of its "map pack 1." That's over $10 million in revenue and more than $7 million forActivision (given the way Bobby Kotick drives deals, I'm willing to bet Activision gets more than the standard 70% from Sony and Microsoft). 

Most importantly, the margins are much better for both pieces of DLC than standard retail games. While they arguably have one-third and one-sixth, respectively of their original games' content (thus justifying the consumer price ratios), the production budgets are much lower than that. After all, they reuse the same engine, art style, user interface, asthe retail titles. That stuff is expensive to design.

For most AAA 360/PS3 games to make an extra 10% in revenue, with higher profit margins, by next year, is a very big deal. But we'll never understand just how important it is. At least not in a systematic way. BecauseNPD doesn't track download sales. Microsoft and Sony, the sellers in this case, guard that data jealously.

Sure, occasionally they or the publishers issue press releases when they have a big hit, as with "World at War." And publishers will inevitably give Wall Street some insight into their DLC revenue as it becomes an increasingly important part of their bottom lines.

But the numbers will be scattershot. We won't have any comprehensive tracking the way we (kinda) do with NPD.

Add PC sales, cell phones, and Web gaming to the growing amount of DLC and there's a huge video game industry outside of the retail consoles sales NPD tracks. Which means the figures upon which most of us analysts, journalists, and other interested folks rely are becoming less representative of the business, particularly its high growth areas.

More and more, it seems like the the NPD figures are becoming for the video game biz what box office grosses are for film: An important set of data that shows only one part of a dynamic and diverse industry.

Sometimes limitations are an artist's best friend.

Case in point: "Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars." It's a great DS game -- I'd put it in competition with "The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass" as the best game every for the system. But it's also a great "Grand Theft Auto" game. Definitely better than the recent expansion pack "Lost and Damned" and even a bit better than "Grand Theft Auto IV."

Why? It's a lot less indulgent than either of those games. Rockstar clearly put a lot of work into what works on the DS -- not just in terms of the controls, the processing power, and the graphical and audio limitations, but also the way most people play Nintendo's portable console in short bursts. The missions are tight, the controls are clean -- moreso than ever thanks to the touch screen -- and the violence is over-the-top fun in the best traditions of the series.

Sure, the physics, the graphics, and the gunfights that spread across multiple levels of multiple buildings are impressive and occasionally astounding in "GTA IV." But they're less exuberant and more visceral -- the game is a tragedy and the action always has that tinge to it. It's too intense and too involved to ever be pure fun.

But that approach wouldn't work on the DS. You can't make action that big, involving and intense on an underpowered portable device. Rockstar wisely realized that and designed its new game accordingly. Here's how I describe the gameplay in my recently posted review of "Chinatown Wars":

"GTA" games work best when the characters and themes match the action -- That's why "GTA IV" was so good and "Lost and Damned" wasn't quite up to par. In "Chinatown Wars," Rockstar nails the writing, crafting a tale that's as irreverent as the gameplay:

The basic narrative formula is incredibly familiar to "GTA" veterans -- a foreigner arrives in Liberty City and quickly finds himself caught up in a gang war, doing jobs for unsavory and amusing characters while on a personal quest. But Hong Kong native Huang Lee is not ridden with pathos like "GTA IV" protag Niko Bellic. He's a smart ass who doesn't take anything or anyone he finds in Liberty City too seriously.

Rockstar has great fun with that attitude, using Lee to mock many of the clichés one might expect in a game called "Chinatown Wars." When his uncle talks about the family honor being "besmirched," Lee responds with a laugh, reminding him that it's "2009, not 1403." Rockstar's trademark portrayal of the culturally respected as corrupt and hypocritical plays out in genuinely funny ways, with old Chinese men spouting lines like, "I know a proverb about that once, but I forgot it."

Finally, while it hardly falls into the purview of a critical review, you have to give Rockstar the credit it always earns: With a big main story, dozens of side quests, and entire drug-dealing economy, local and wi-fi multi-player, and easy replay of every mission, the game is simply massive. Probably the biggest ever on the DS (save perhaps for, again, "Zelda: Phantom Hourglass"). In a down economy, Rockstar continues to give players some of the best value for their entertainment dollar.

Full review: Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars

"Grand Theft Auto IV" may not be as big as "The Dark Knight" or "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas," as I just wrote, but it's still pretty effing big. $750 million in sales in nine months is pretty damned good. And the Rockstar label, which makes most of its money from "GTA," accounts for 40% of parent company Take-Two's revenue. 2K Sports and 2K Games, by contrast, both of which release substantially more games, account for 25%.

That's why Take-Two signed a groundbreaking deal with Rockstar's top talent, primarily co-founders Sam and Dan Houser and Rockstar North president Leslie Benzes, in December that included ownership of future games and profit sharing.

In its earnings today, Take-Two detailed the first payments to "certain employees of Rockstar Games," (the Housers, Benzies, and possibly a few others): 2.85 million shares of stock. Or approximately $20 million at today's price.

Not a bad start. And of course that's separate from any payments the Rockstar leaders will be getting in profit sharing. The plan is in full effect this quarter and included new downloadable title "The Lost and Damned," which, Take-Two says, is already profitable (though they declined to say how many copies have been downloaded from Xbox Live).

Remember when "Grand Theft Auto IV" grossed over $500 million in its opening week last April and Take-Two bragged that it was the largest launch for any entertainment product? Well, they were totally right, but as new data released by Take-Two today underlines, it sure didn't have much staying power.

On its earnings call, the publisher said the "Grand Theft Auto" franchise earned another $60 million in the quarter ending Jan. 31, bringing the total since "IV" was released to $770 million. Given that the new game has shipped over 13 million units, it's safe to assume that the vast majority of that money is for it and not catalog versions. $750 million is a safe estimate.

That means "GTA IV" made about two-thirds of its revenue-to-date in the first week alone. Talk about front-loaded. By contrast, the year's biggest movie, "The Dark Knight," made about 45% of its total domestic gross in its first week (worldwide gross is really tricky since it opened in different countries on different dates). Even assuming "GTA IV" has some life left in it, it will have done well more than half its sales in the first week.

Let this also put to rest the old canard that video games may make more money than movies. Sure they can open bigger, since a lot of video game fans like to get their hands on a big title as soon as it's available. But "GTA IV" has made about $750 million to date and might get into the $800 millions. "The Dark Knight," by contrast, sold over $1 billion worth of tickets. And that's just box office. There's also DVD sales and rentals, cable, pay-per-view, video-on-demand, and eventually a broadcast airing. Add it all together and you've got well over $1.5 billion, or double "GTA IV."

Also worth noting: "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" is the biggest franchise installment to date, selling 21.5 million units. "GTA IV" is looking extremely unlikely to surpass that figure (in fact, I'm ready to state unequivocally it's not going to happen). That's perhaps no surprise, given that the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 currently have an install base about half the size of the Playstation 2 a year after "San Andreas" launched (not to mention that the latter game eventually came out for PC and Xbox). Then again, "GTA IV" is estimated to have cost $100 million to make, substantially more than "San Andreas." Higher costs and lower sales = less profits

In the category of news that informs us something wasn't a complete disaster comes this announcement from Microsoft:

Well yea, given that it's the most expensive DLC ever available on Xbox Live, and it comes from one of the biggest modern franchises in the videogame industry, it had better have broken the record. If it hadn't, something would have been very, very wrong for Rockstar and Microsoft.

Note that Microsoft only mentioned revenue, however, and not the actual number of units. We can safely assume from that that it didn't break the record for the most number of paid downloads by a piece of DLC, which appears to have been set by "Call of Duty 4's" Variety map pack last spring.

Without knowing how many copies of "Lost and Damned" Rockstar sold, we don't know anything really interesting. Like how many of the more than 10 million people who have bought copies of the game (the vast majority in North America and Europe and thus able to acces the DLC) bought "Lost and Damned?" And how much progress did Microsoft make on earning back the $50 million advance it gave Rockstar parent Take-Two for exclusive rights to "Lost and Damned" and the upcoming second "GTA IV" DLC.

All we know so far is that the "Lost and Damned" didn't launch way below everyone's expectations.

When you play a game for dozens of hours, little quirks can really annoy you. I know I'm not the only one annoyed by the mission re-start mechanism in "Grand Theft Auto IV." Specifically, when you fail a mission, you re-start at the point where you technically begin the mission, not where the actual action starts. In the case of "GTA IV," that means you have to drive somewhere, sometimes all the way across Liberty City. That can take two, three, even five minutes.

If you're like me, not the most consistently awesome gamer in the world, there are some missions that might fail 10 or 15 times. Which means you have to go on the same drive over and over and over. So many times that you have the route memorized. So many times that you've heard all the alternate dialogue Rockstar provided and while you're glad the character you're driving with has the good sense to just suggest you listen to the radio rather than repeat yourself, you're still annoyed. Can't I just re-start where the action begins? After all, while the realism of driving somewhere is appreciated and the use of car rides for conversations, rather than putting it all in cut scenes, is clever, we don't need it over and over and over. Once we accept that Niko can come back to life in a hospital every time he dies and re-start a mission via a text on his cell phone, I'm willing to accept the he magically teleports to where the action begins.

Clearly the developers at Rockstar North heard fans complaining about this. And/or experienced the problem itself. Which is why it's so satisfying to discover in "The Lost and Damned" that, when you die, you can re-start a mission exactly where you want to, at the moment the action begins. Smart move, Rockstar. I'm honestly grateful. And not only because there's that one goddamned mission that took me 18 tries to pass.

(When you saw the title I bet you thought I was going to talk about the full frontal male nudity, didn't you? You disgust me, pervert.)

Is it possible to admire a game tremendously and still be disappointed by it?

It seems to me that's starting to be the question about “Grand Theft Auto.” I wasn’t on board with that view for “GTA IV” -- It made my top ten list for 2008. And that was, to be honest, before I had fully finished the story. I did a few weeks ago, and while I think it drags early in the third act and the final scene is really hokey, the penultimate mission, where players have to make a major moral choice, was incredibly compelling and brought together many underlying strands of the game nicely.

But three writers I respect, Variety’s three freelance videogame critics – Leigh Alexander, Tom Chick and Chris Dahlen – listed it as one of their most “overrated” or “disappointing” games of the year. Tom described it succinctly as, “One of the most amazing realizations of a real-world-ish place and one of my favorite games this year. Also the setting for a poorly told story and uninspired gameplay…” Leigh added that it’s “In many ways… the wildest and most poignant video game ever made -- but in most ways, it's over-weighted, illogical and emotionally manipulative…”

I thought they were all off base on “GTA IV.” But I find their viewpoint making more sense to me on “The Lost and Damned,” the new downloadable “GTA IV” episode, which I just reviewed for Variety.

As far as DLC goes, Rockstar has taken it to a new level. This isn’t extra content – it’s an entirely new game, complete with characters, a story, vehicles, challenges, and multi-player modes. It even fixes one of the most annoying parts about “GTA IV” (more on that in my next post) and adds some dead on new music (“Highway Star” in a game about a motorcycle gang? Hell yes.) And it’s not just quantity. Much of it is quality. The characters are well written, the cut scene animation is significantly better than in “GTA IV,” and some of the multi-player modes are really clever. All that for a $20 digital download? I’ve seen less for $60 on a disc. Rockstar, you have officially impressed me.

BUT… “The Lost and Damned” also has major problems, as I noted in my review. In particular, it’s a structural mess. Not only because the story is poorly paced and has a hugely unsatisfying finale, though it is and it does. Even more because the missions, most of which are remarkably similar to the ones in “GTA IV,” don’t fit this game.

Or rather, they don’t fit this character. Niko Bellic is, let’s be blunt, a sociopath. His ability to emphathise is minimal and his willingness to kill anyone and everyone is practically limitless. But that was the point of the character and the game actually addresses the consequences of his action at the end. So it works.

Johnny Klebitz, vice president of motorcycle gang “The Lost” is not a sociopath. He is specifically set up as a rational guy, in contrast to hothead gang president Billy Grey, recently out of jail, who’s eager to start turf wars, steal drugs, and other nasty stuff. Which is why, by the second act of the game, when Johnny is engaging is very Niko-esque missions that involve gratuitous mass murder, sometimes of police, just to make some money or help a friend or avoid blackmail, it made me cringe. It’s the wrong character for the missions. Or the wrong missions for the character.

It’s all summed up, really, in the finale. (I won’t reveal the exact details since the game has only been out for two days <sorry, Brainy Gamer>, but those of you who want to be totally surprised should consider this a spoiler warning). The game has blatantly been building toward a final confrontation. And because it’s heavily influenced by Western movies (not just in themes; even the fonts have a Western motif), I was expecting a dramatic showdown. The “GTA” equivalent of ten paces at sundown.

Instead, it’s an over-the-top, gratuitous orgy of violence that involves killing dozens (maybe hundreds?) of innocent security officers who are just doing their job. It’s unrealistic, doesn’t fit the character, and isn’t a satisfying end to the story, structurally or thematically. Everything that’s mature and sophisticated and interesting about “GTA” thrown out the window in favor of everything that moralistic critics unfairly say defines the series.

As always, I’m glad I don’t have to actually give a recommendation in my Variety reviews. Because if you like “GTA IV” gameplay, it’s an amazing value. If you want proof that DLC can be much more than a mere expansion pack, this is it. But if you’re looking for a well designed merging of story and gameplay, “The Lost and Damned” doesn’t deliver.

Full review: “Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned"

Capcom released its earnings late last week and buried in the stats was this little detail I almost missed: "Grand Theft Auto IV," which Capcom has been selling for Rockstar in Japan since November.

"GTA III," "Vice City" and "San Andreas" all sold poorly in Japan, at least compared to their massive worldwide figures. For such distinctly Western games, 4440,000, 560,000, and 419,000 units, respectively, aren't bad. But when you compared that to the 12.1 million, 15.3 million, and 22.2 million units, respectively, sold worldwide for each game, the sales are miniscule.

It looks like "GTA IV" won't be any different. In its first two months on the market, it sold just 280,000 units. For the sake of comparison, in its first week in the U.S. and Europe, the game sold over 6 million units.

Back in November I interviewed Rockstar VP creative Dan Houser about the Japan launch. He admitted that with the dominance of the Wii and DS in Japan -- platforms on which "GTA IV" is not available -- sales were unlikely to be massive. "Our hope is just to step it up a little," he said.

But it looks like it's not to be. Unless "GTA IV" does really well as a discounted catalog title, reaching the approximately 500,000 units its predescessors sold is probably the best case scenario. Of course, given the low install base of the Xbox 360 and PS3 in Japan compared to the PS2 for which the other "GTA" games were available, that could be considered something of an accomplishment. Nonetheless, compared to the 10 million-plus units "IV" has already sold in the West, that's another drop in the bucket.

It'll be really interesting to see how "Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars" for the DS performs in Japan (we get it in March; it'll probably land there later in the fall). Nintendo's handheld console is near ubiqutious in Japan, so there will be no issues with the platform. It will be a pure test of whether Japanese consumers dig the "GTA" franchise in 2009.

(Unless the "Chinatown" aspect makes a difference one way or another in Japan?)

Photo from Wired's Game/Life

One of the most innovative features of "Grand Theft Auto IV" when it launched last year was the ability to buy any one of the 150-plus songs on Liberty City's 19 radio stations via the in-gam "Zit" service and a partnership with Amazon.com's MP3 store.

That service isn't going anywhere with the upcoming "GTA IV" downloadable episode "The Lost and the Damned," which updates five the game's virtual radio stations with new tracks from artists including Busta Rhymes and Funkmaster Flex. But the Amazon.com partnership is.

About 10 months after the deal started, Rockstar is ditching Amazon.com and switching to iTunes. The update to the music download service, which ties into the Rockstar Social website, will come when "The Lost and the Damned" launches next week.

No official word yet on the reasons, but when I interviewed "GTA IV's" soundtrack supervisor Ivan Pavlovich last year, he said one of the reasons Rockstar picked Amazon was they wanted downloaded songs to be available without DRM, so they wouldn't be restricted to a certain device.

Apple, of course, recently decided to make the entire iTunes library DRM-free, eliminating that concern. And Amazon.com's MP3 store, which was only about half a year old and growing fast when Rockstar struck its deal last year, hasn't become very big. It's still fighting with eMusic, Napster, Rhapsody etc. for the scraps left beyond iTunes 90%-plus market domination.

Given all that, it's perhaps no surprise Rockstar is making the switch. Since many more "GTA IV" players are used to iTunes, more music will likely be sold, earning additional commissions for Rockstar and, probably more importantly, making the labels and artists who want to sell more tracks happier.

It's definitely a blow, however, for Amazon, for whom the Rockstar partnership was a big promotional opportunity and selling point last year -- one of the very few unique features of its MP3 store.

It's also interesting to see Rockstar adding new music to "GTA IV" via DLC, something I doubt few players were expecting for their $20. It will probably be a while until we see game soundtracks dynamically updated, but adding fresh songs via DLC seens kuje a great way to keep the game world alive and vibrant, not to mention a great way for labels to promote new stuff.

Here's an interesting statistic from Take-Two's earnings today that I almost forgot to mention.

"Grand Theft Auto IV," along with catalog sales of other "GTA" titles, has generated $710 million in net revenues for Take-Two this past fiscal year, which ended Oct. 31. Take out the tiny amount "GTA" catalog sales probably represents, and we're talking about $700 million in six months (though only $40 million of that came last quarter, meaning "GTA IV" did the vast majority of its sales in the first two months). By the time the current quarter is done and the game spends some time in catalog, it could be approaching $800 million or more.

The year's biggest movie, "The Dark Knight," has grossed about $1 billion. But that's gross. Net box office revenue to Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures was probably half that. Now granted, by the time "The Dark Knight" cycles through DVD, pay TV, cable, etc. it will certainly make more money than "GTA IV." But the fact that they're even close is remarkable. "Grand Theft Auto" is one lucrative media franchise.

No wonder Strauss Zelnick felt he had to dish out an unprecedent deal to keep the Housers and other top talent in-house. Would you want to risk messing with that formula? Especially when that one brand, and primarily that one game, represented 60% of publishing revenue for an entire year?

[Note: I've updated this post by essentially replacing it with the article I just finished writing for Variety, which I think captures all the important info much better. I'll be following this up with a Q-and-A with Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick about the deal very soon.]

The creators of “Grand Theft Auto” are sticking with Take-Two in an unprecedented deal that includes a cut of the profits and full ownership of future games.

Ending months of speculation about whether top talent at Rockstar Games, the Take-Two label that makes the ultra successful “GTA” and other franchises, would remain when their contract expires in February, the publisher has signed them to a new three year contract through 2012.

Deal includes Rockstar co-founders Sam and Dan Houser and Leslie Benzes, president of the Scotland development studio that makes most “GTA” games.

Though Wall Street welcomed the news, Take-Two stock plunged 19% in after-hours trading Wednesday as the publisher unveiled lower than expected guidance for 2009 due to caution over the weakening economy.

Compensation under the new contract comes primarily through profit sharing for the Rockstar label, which contributes nearly half of Take-Two’s revenue. Though videogame creators typically receive royalties based on sales of specific titles they make, Rockstar talent is believed to be the first to get a major stake in overall profits.

Pact also includes an equity grant of Take-Two stock that will vest over three years.

Most significant part of the deal, however, is that the Housers, Benzies, and other Rockstar team members will establish an independent company to develop new videogames that they will fully own. Take-Two has agreed to fund development in exchange for exclusive distribution rights.

Intellectual property ownership by creators is rare in the videogame industry and unprecedented for those who are employees of major publishers.

In an interview, Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick said the Housers and Benzies will spend most of their time working at Rockstar and continue to create games for that label, along with sequels to existing franchises, while also working on new games for their independent company.

“This is a team that has been responsible for the top-selling IP in the business and has a uniquely successful creative culture,” Zelnick told Daily Variety. “It’s terribly important for us to be in business together with them and we’re proud to align the interest of our colleagues with our company and stockholders.”

April release “Grand Theft Auto IV” has already sold more than 10 million units worldwide. In addition, Take-Two has high hopes for a downloadable expansion pack to the game that will be released in February and a spin-off for the Nintendo DS coming out in March.

However, Rockstar games have been selling modestly so far this fall as the videogame business has slowed down along with the economy.

On a conference call with analysts, Take-Two CEO Ben Feder said “GTA IV” has performed only “OK” lading up to the holidays. He characterized initial sales for Rockstar’s car racing game “Midnight Club: Los Angeles,” which was released in October, as “slower than expected.”

Take-Two’s overall performance for the quarter ending October 31 was in line with previous guidance, as the publisher lost $15 million on $323.4 million in revenue. That’s up from a $7.1 million loss on $292.6 million in revenue last year and was driven primarily by “GTA IV,” “NBA 2K9,” and the company’s successful “Carnival Games” family franchise.

However, Wall Street was disappointed by Take-Two’s conservative guidance for the current quarter and the fiscal year ending next October. Though the company always suffers in the year following a major “Grand Theft Auto” release, investors didn’t expect revenue to dip from over $1.5 billion to between $1.1 billion and $1.25 billion, as Take-Two now says it will due to the ongoing recession, which has already impacted competitors including Electronic Arts.

“It’s important to remember that consumers of interactive entertainment are as effected by the economy as other shoppers,” Zelnick noted. “We’ve taken a hard look at our forecast for the next 12 months and we’ve significantly reduced our expectations.”

Take-Two stock closed up a fraction at $12.07 Wednesday before earnings and the Rockstar deal were announced.

On Tuesday I had a brief but interesting interview with Rockstar Games' co-founder and creative VP for an article I did about "Grand Theft Auto IV's" Japan release. Given that most major events in American pop culture, be they movies or videogames, get a simultaneous or near simultaneous worldwide release, I thought it was interesting that "GTA IV" was hitting the world's biggest videogame market six months after it came out in the U.S. and Europe (where it has already sold more than 10 million units).

One of the reasons is obvious: Compared to the rest of the world, "Grand Theft Auto" games barely sell in Japan. They do better than many Western titles, but as a percentage of worldwide sales, Japan is miniscule. Here are the stats from the last three:

Grand Theft Auto III
Worldwide: 12.1 million; Japan: 444,000; Japan as % of worldwide: 3.7%

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Worldwide: 15.3 million; Japan: 560,000; Japan as % of worldwide: 3.7%

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Worldwide: 22.2 million; Japan: 419,000; Japan as % of worldwide: 1.9%

(According to GamesIndustry, "GTA IV" topped the charts in Japan its first week, selling 133,000 titles on PS3. The Xbox 360 version came in no. 7)

I spoke to Dan about why that is, what the plans are for "GTA IV's" release in Japan, and a few other topics. You can read the resulting article in Variety here. But since the transcript of my last interview with Dan Houser was such a hit, I figured I'd provide the whole thing here, in only slightly edited form:

Me: It has been six months since "Grand Theft Auto IV" was released in North America and Europe. Why the long disparity. Is it commercial considerations or production?

Dan Houser: We weren't ready at the same time. We're not a Japanese company [by which he means Rockstar and parent Take-Two don't operate in Japan] and we needed a Japanese partner there. We have had difficulty in the past releasing games there due to content issues. But we weren't really ready to get it out before the downtime of summer and this is the next window that's available.

Me: You didn't want to release it in the summer?

DH: If it slips out past April or May, then June to August is very quiet. "GTA IV" disproved the traditional model of all big releases have to come out in October or November. We're moving past that from what we previously thought were six months in which you could release a game to nine months. But it's still a quiet time in the summer. This for us was the next big window.

Me: Did you dub the voices for Japan? Or are you doing subtitles?

DH: We have always released ["GTA"] with subtitles. With the facial animation we do, it would be enormously expensive to dub it... We also just think it works better with American voices.

It wouldn't be a problem because they are used to playing games spoken in English and they still have to read a lot of things on screen regardless.

American accents are part of the experience. We toyed back in the day with doing some radio stations in Japanese, but we were told by local experts that wouldn't help because people like to hear and feel that they are in America. From our perspective the goal is a very immersive experience and part of that immersion is to hear people speaking English in American accents.

Me: Is there much controversy about the games' content in Japan compared to what you have seen in the U.S.?

DH: We had a lot of trouble between the release of "Vice City" and "San Andreas" in Japan. There was a big content outcry and that was a battle that needed to be fought. All of those issues were resolved so we didn't face them this time.

"Vice City" came out and went well, but then they wouldn’t let us release "San Andreas" until the changed the ratings system. So "Vice City" came out with a similar delay as this, roughly six months. Then "San Andreas" came out in the U.S. in late 2004 and two years later in Japan. It was ratings and political hell there for a while.

Me: Capcom is distributing "GTA IV" in Japan? Is that because Take-Two doesn't have a presence?

DH: Yes, Capcom. They did all the "GTA's."

Take-Two doesn't have any distribution there. We felt when we were first going in it's a very alien market and we need local expertise at all points of the chain, be it relationships with retailers, ratings bodies, or different parts of Sony and Microsoft. We were already dealing with enough other issues in terms of the culture.

Capcom has been a great partner. They love releasing foreign games. They have a great record. We have done other games with other people there, though...

We just released "Bully" there with Bethesda, who have a Japanese arm. We look at it on a case by case basis. We basically offer it out to a bunch of them and see who’s got the most energy behind a particular product. [Imports are] not a huge department for Capcom so they are heavily focused on "GTA IV," which is why it wasn't the best home for "Bully." It's not always just about money, but how much energy they put behind anything.

Me: How do you handle the marketing there? I know Rockstar likes to produce all of its marketing materials in-house, but surely you need some help in Japan.

DH: We work together on that. They tell us what works, based on the art style or vocabulary of what worked over here. Then they localize it.

I was walking through [Tokyo's shopping and entertainment district] Shibuya last week and seeing all of the same posters we have here, but some were in Japanese.

They love the stuff we make. They work with us. It tends to be that they want it to feel very similar.

One of the mistakes we made early was a T-shirt for "Vice City" on which we translated 'Vice City' into Japanese. It turns out that doesn’t work culturally. We were told they want to see 'Vice City' spelled in English. So the logos on the posters were exactly same, but with a Japanese subtitle.

Me: It seems like "Grand Theft Auto" is such a uniquely American work that you can't disguise it.

DH: We make that part of the sales. How it's sold there is as this American experience. I did a couple of press interviews and both the guys I spoke to very much liked that it features a foreigner as the lead. They said that's where 'GTA IV' can really engage them. It feels like they're visiting American with him. That was really good to hear.

Me: Is that true for most players in Japan? It's the world's biggest videogame market, but it seems like a lot of people there are playing RPGs on their DS and the sort of thing that are very, very different from "GTA."

DH: It's true that of the three markets we're in, Japan is not that huge. In Japan, Nintendo is a massive market. We're on Xbox and PS3 and our goal is to do very well on those. We're taking a long-term goal with Japan of trying to grow the game and grow the interest. We're doing decent numbers over there. For a Western game, we're doing amazing numbers.

But we're very ambitious and we want the game to compete with the biggest Japanese titles. We're not there yet and don't think we're going to get there necessarily with 'IV." Our hope is just to step it up a level. The response we were getting from people is that they've never seen anything like this before. They saw it creatively as very advanced.

We're consistently sold more games over there. "San Andreas" was down a little from "Vice City," mostly due to softness in the PS2 market.

Me: Is there a small but rabid group of hard core "GTA" fans in Japan?

DH: Oh totally. Definitely. People we were speaking to were saying, "I don't play games, but this makes me want to start playing them again." It's a more open and engaging concept than a lot of Japanese-designed games have become. They tend to be more corridor-based and less open. That was half the people we spoke to. The other half have played every "GTA" since "III" and started asking incredibly detailed questions.

Me: That's interesting people were comparing it to recent Japanese games, since I've been reading a lot recently about how Japanese videogame development is in a creative rut and a lot of the energy is really now in the West.

DH: I have in the past had famous Japanese designers say that stuff to me off record. We grew up looking at Nintendo in particular and other big Japanese companies as a sphere that we could never get anywhere close to -- Up to and including the days of N64. Certainly in the early days of 3-D gaming  they were light years ahead of Western companies.

When we started Rockstar, the charts were dominated by sports games, mostly Western made, but apart from that all the other stuff was Japanese or Japanese rip-offs. That was the early PS1 time frame. Since PS2 really got going and into PS3 and Xbox 1 and 360, things have really moved, apart from Nintendo, to being dominated by Western-developed stuff completely. The Western charts now are split 50/50. There has definitely been a shift in which European and North American developers have found out how to make quality games.

Me: Given how popular the DS is in Japan, it seems like your upcoming DS version of "GTA" ["Chinatown Wars"] could have more potential there than anything else you've done.

DH: It's funny I was just talking to some people 10 minutes ago and saying we need to speak with potential partners about how to do the DS game in Japan and how we'll approach it there. I think that game has enormous potential everywhere. It's unlike anything else, but it still works well so if you like DS games, you'll like this game. Our feeling is it should work really well in Asia and Europe and in the U.S.

But we have got to find a partner and see what’s going down with our options there. We haven’t spoken to any yet because we wanted to get "GTA IV" out of the way first.

Me: On another topic, I have to ask you about the "GTA IV" downloadable content you're doing. Do you still expect that to come out this year?

DH: I'm not sure. It's going well. But we don’t know a date. We hope to be announcing that in the next few weeks. We're still figuring out a few things. We're more focused on quality than dates, always have been. But the development is going really good. It's shaping up to be something we're very proud of. That was our goal

Me: Do you think you'll talk at all about what the DLC will be and how it will fit into "GTA IV's" story?

DH: We want to give people a rough idea so their expectations are roughly in line. We don't want them to imagine it's this enormous thing that it can never be...

Doing a big digital launch is something we've never done before. It's virgin territory, but at the same time, we feel very exposed because there's no case history. No one ever came out with major DLC for a major game like this before.

It's new territory for everybody. We're making it up a little bit as we go along. That's always fun, but it makes you nervous.

Me: Like how do you price something like this?

DH: How to price it. Whether to release it day-and-date everywhere... Europe and the U.S. I'm sure will be day-and-date or within a few days, but I'm not sure about Japan. It's a small Xbox market...

You even have to ask what time to release it at. We have some experience of doing through releasing our trailers. It can slow down sections of the 'Net. What works as a great time on the east coast may be late for

Europe and too early for the west coast. Those are all things we wouldn’t normally think about.

[FYI, Houser's statements are all quotes, just edited slightly for clarity. I did re-arrange the order of a few questions for flow. I also cut here and there, indicated by ... when appropriate. I wasn't able to write down my own questions as I asked them, since I was busy keeping up with what Dan said, so my questions are approximations of what I remember asking. Also, the photo is borrowed, with gratitude, from Edge.]

There was only one real piece of news (as in something interesting that we didn't expect) at Nintendo's press conference this morning, but it was a doozy: Rockstar is making a new "Grand Theft Auto" game exclusively for the DS called "Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars."

It's the first time the uber-popular "GTA" franchise has come to a Nintendo system since 2004's "Grand Theft Auto Advance" for the Game Boy and it's a coming together many of us thought would never happen again, since the Nintendo audience tends to skew younger than Rockstar's and its consoles don't have the processing power that "GTA 4" demanded.

But there's no ignoring the massive install base of the DS, which Nintendo says will hit nearly 100 million by March. Sure, lots of kids and older players who aren't into "GTA" have a DS. But pretty much every core gamer has one as well these days. So there's no reason Rockstar make an M-rated game and target them.

Parent company Take-Two Interactive has got to be excited. It's coming off the huge "Grand Theft Auto IV" launch and has the first downloadable content promises for the end of this year. Then there's yet another piece of "GTA" content coming next winter -- and it's for a platform with a bigger install base than the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 combined. That means it's at least a year until Take-Two has to worry about not having any new "GTA" content on the immediate horizon, which will please Strauss Zelnick and his investors.

Details thus far are light, though the game is coming out this Winter. Rockstar promises it's a wholly original story in which "players will navigate their way through the streets as they uncover the truth behind an epic tale of crime and corruption within the Triad crime syndicate." Despite the DS's lack of  power compared to even the PSP, Rockstar says "Chinatown Wars" will have the same "unprecedented amount of depth" that "GTA" games are known for and will also take full advantage of the handheld console's touch screen.

Game is being developed by Rockstar Leeds, which also made the PSP spin-offs "Vice City Stories" and "Liberty City Stories."

(This story previously said "Chinatown Wars" will be the first "GTA" game ever on a Nintendo console. As a few commenters pointed out, that was wrong. That was my bad for blogging in a rush during E3 madness and not doing enough research.)

A couple of interesting links for those who like really thoughtful discussions of games:

-The final installment of N'Gai Croal and Stephen Totilo's "vs. mode" discussion about "GTA IV" got really interesting as they addressed some good reader questions and comments. I was particularly intrigued by this one, which is a much more extreme version of the same thing I said last month:

I also found the story to be a fraudulent bill of goods, between the laughable artifice in some of the NPCs (Michelle after 10 seconds in the car: "I'd really like to get to know you better, Niko...") and every time the writers build up a little good will in terms of your emotional investment in Niko they squander it on something completely out of character in the name of a violent filler mission.

Another commenter calls that problem the "'uncanny valley' in terms of gameplay," which is a pretty apt description of it, I'd say. N'Gai responds that maybe we're putting too much faith in Niko Bellic as a person, but I think Stephen's more right when he wrote "The game left me no choice but to think of Niko as scum. I think the game designers wanted me to feel some sympathy for him. No way." That's how I felt and it's how I feel even more as I keep on playing. And it's a comment I've heard from more and more people.

I feel like with every major videogame (and many movies and books, for that matter), that's a general consensus about a problem the game has that wasn't too apparent at first that develops over time. In the case of "GTA IV," my perception is that the huge conflict between the person the game's writing tells us Niko is and the person we have to make him be in the gameplay is it.

-Regular Variety critic Leigh Alexander has a good piece on Kotaku about fans need to stop responding to critical debates by saying "it's just a game." As she writes:

“It’s only a game” is a phrase that agrees with all of those who ever looked down their noses at the medium, who want to nutshell it as a child’s plaything, who want to promote the kind of prejudice that will keep games from ever achieving widespread respect for everything they are.

When gamers ask whether the imagery of a white man shooting through a vacant-eyed sea of African villagers feels all right to them, we do ourselves a massive disservice when we simply dismiss questions like that, when we attack each other.

Whether or not you like murdering whores in GTA IV, we do ourselves a massive disservice when we fail to use that as a springboard to consider our own, and our community’s attitude toward women.

So it may be our responsibility to defend games, to explain them when they’re misjudged, to support our right to the full spectrum of emotion and experience they offer, both delightful and disturbing.

But questions like MTV Multiplayer's Steven Totilo's (our kind guest editor this week), asking, "Are Games Our Fantasies?" ought not to be brushed under the rug.

She's dead on, and that leads extremely well into a post I'm working on right now (going up shortly) about a new game that I find really morally disturbing. Look for it very soon.

Over at GigaOM, a tech news site mostly dedicated to Internet stuff, Wagner James Au argues that "the era of next-gen gaming as a driving force is over." His evidence is that "Grand Theft Auto IV" hasn't boosted sales of the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, as most industry observers expected.

I'm already on the record as being shocked that the PS3 and 360 got no visible boost from the debut of that monster game, indicating that most of the people buying "GTA IV" already have their system to play it on. That's not great news for Sony or Microsoft.

Nintendo's Wii, meanwhile, maintained its huge lead over both systems in April and May even though "GTA IV," which isn't available for the Wii, was the best selling game both months.

But I think Au is getting ahead of himself by saying that we can conclude neither hardware system has any life left in it sales-wise. "If Grand Theft Auto can’t move more machines, nothing can," he asserts. But "GTA IV" is a bit of an odd animal, since it came out in April, not anywhere close to the holidays, and it wasn't a single system exclusive. So there could still be plenty of people who own a 360 waiting to buy a PS3 and vice-versa.

To make any really definitive claims, I think we have to wait until the end of the year. That's when we'll have seen huge PS3 exclusive "Metal Gear Solid 4," huge 360 exclusive "Gears of War 2," and the holidays. If none of those 3 things, along with "GTA IV," can move hardware sales, then we can probably say that the two systems are about tapped out, at least at their current prices. And then we'll have to start asking some really serious questions about the wisdom of high powered, high priced game systems.

By the by, Au also argues that "['GTA IV's'] predecessor, 2004’s GTA: San Andreas, sold 21.5 million copies.  With GTA IV sales already plummeting, the franchise’s latest installment from Take-Two Interactive will be lucky to move 12-14 million copies total." That's really speculative. Given that it came out in April, I think we can reasonably expect that sales would fall dramatically after the first 9 million people get their hands on it right away. But there could easily be a huge sales boost around the holidays and continued steady sales for a few years as the price of the 360 and PS3 drop and the audience potentially widens. The game could still sell incredibly well. And even if it doesn't quite match "San Andreas'" 21.5 million units, that's understandable since the PS2 was more mature and had a bigger install base when that game came out.

And this statement, ultimately, is way over the top: "In other words, the days when so-called “next-gen” gaming reigned supreme are coming to end — instead, the industry’s future will be shaped by games like 'Rock Band.'" Sure, new kinds of games that appeal to broader audiences are an increasingly important part of the market. But "GTA IV," even if it doesn't quite match "San Andreas," will still be hugely profitable (hell, it grossed over $500 million in its first week). As was "Call of Duty 4," as are franchises like "Halo" and "Metal Gear Solid" and "Gears of War." We'll be seeing games like that for as long as videogaming exists, I predict. But as the industry grows and expands, a big chunk of that growth will be taken up by the new kinds of games and new kinds of systems. That's all. 

Another detail from Take Two earnings that I had missed: Rockstar has pushed back the release of "Grand Theft Auto IV's" first batch of episodic content until the company's first fiscal quarter of 2009, which runs from November 1 to January 31. It was originally supposed to come int he quarter ending October 31.

Take Two's official word is that the delay is to "provide a better balance in Take-Two's release schedule." That does make sense. But I wonder whether Rockstar was going to have it done? When I spoke to Dan Houser in April, he said that "there's not much going on with it" and that they probably wouldn't start thinking about it until after "GTA IV" shipped. Even assuming they got right to work in May, that's only six months to produce something pretty substantial.

More coming on Take-Two Interactive earnings soon, but I had to immediately post the new sales figures from "Grand Theft Auto IV." Take Two revealed that it as of May 31, the game has sold 8.5 million units to consumers and 11 million total into retailers (meaning that's what stores ordered and eventually expected to sell.

Remember that in its first week, "GTA IV" sold 6 million units. So things have slowed down a bit since then, but it's still racking up huge numbers and seems well on its way to being the best selling Xbox 360 and PS3 games (Infinity Ward recently revealed that "Call of Duty 4" has sold over 10 million units, but I don't know how many of those were PC).

Based on the $500 million-plus figure that Take Two put out along with first week sales, basic math indicates that is has now generated over $700 million in sales, with over $900 million worth of games sold into retail.

Editor's note: The following post is by film and videogame writer and friend of The Cut Scene Justin Marks. He wrote previously about his time modding "Halo 3" during the writers' strike and why Hollywood's isn't actually pissing all over our favorite games. All the opinions are his, especially the parts disagreeing with me.

My friend Ben Fritz, who writes for Variety.com's videogame blog The Cut Scene, had an interesting bone to pick recently with "Grand Theft Auto IV." In an essay titled "Narrative sophistication vs. open world," he mentioned the ever-present problem in these sandbox games when it comes to balancing a confined story with the fact that you can literally do just about anything:

How can players seriously believe Niko’s on a date when his girlfriend doesn’t mind that he’s carrying a knife, walking her through a 5-foot-deep pond and getting in numerous car accidents? Why can a distinctive-looking illegal immigrant commit hundreds of carjackings and nobody seems to care?

Basically, Ben is bothered by the fact that while you can do anything in the open world environment, the story actually operates on a very set track, going from plot point to plot point as if no one in Liberty City had any idea that you just spent the last two hours initiating a five-star police chase that culminated in your plunging a car off a bridge and then swimming back to a safe house. In the context of an increasingly sophisticated open world where Liberty City actually feels like a living and breathing universe, the game's rigid narrative structure is becoming a bit, well... tired.

But I don't mind the fact that "GTA's" gameplay sometimes bounces up against the narrative.  The question I want to explore is this: Why does my gameplay have to be constantly interrupted by this reductive thing called a story?

Before we begin, let's call a spade a spade here. It's been a few weeks, we've all had a little perspective, and I think it's fair to admit that the game press may have jumped the gun a bit on their exuberance for "Grand Theft Auto IV's" storyline. Simon Parkin, in his Chewing Pixels column, was even bold enough to come clean about his hyperbole.  It's not, as IGN amazingly called it, "Oscar-caliber." The adventure of Niko Bellic, complete with its comic assortment of ethnic cliches, is pretty much on par with the rest of the franchise's self-conscious worship of movie archetypes and genre tropes. And there's nothing wrong with that. Rockstar has made clear that's all they've ever wanted to do, and they've done a damn fine job at that (although I do miss some of that charming humor from "Vice City" and "San Andreas"). 

There's an interesting profile in the New York Times today of Michael Hollick, the actor who voices Niko Bellic in "Grand Theft Auto IV." As writer Seth Schiesel points out, Hollick got about $100,000 for his 15 months of work (on-and-off, I presume). That's not bad, but not in the ballpark of what the stars of other media that gross $500 million plus can expect. Not even those who do voiceover work, like the stars of big animated movies (Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy and Mike Myers famously get $10 million-plus for the "Shrek" films).

And as Schiesel points out, there are "zero royalties or residuals in sight." That's not true for actors in any other big media (that I'm aware of).

However, there's some context that Schiesel gets wrong. Here's what he writes about the role the Screen Actors Guild plays in this issue:

As it stands, [the actors in "GTA IV"] get nothing beyond the standard Screen Actor Guild  day rate they were originally paid. That is because the contracts between the actors’ union and the entertainment industry make little or no provision for electronic media like video games and the Internet. It is a discrepancy that is expected to dominate negotiations between Hollywood and the guild this summer, with many predicting an actors’ strike to parallel the writers’ strike last year, which revolved around similar issues.

Actually, there is a "provision" for videogames. It just doesn't include residuals. SAG almost went on strike trying to get residuals for top selling videogames in 2005. They even staged a protest at E3 that year. I know this because it was one of the early stories I covered for Variety. SAG ultimately failed, winning, as Claude Brodesser and I wrote in June of 2005, "zilch" in the form of residuals. All it managed to get was a 36% increase in the base day rate.

Schiesel is also wrong to say that videogames are an issue in the current SAG negotiations. The Internet is, but videogames aren't. Current talks and the potential strike this summer are with the major film and TV studios. SAG's residual-free contract with the big videogame publishers goes through the end of this year.

At that point, we may very well see a renewed push for residuals for stars like Hollick and even a potential strike. When the current contract was agreed to in 2005, then SAG president Melissa Gilbert said, "We will spend the next three-and-a-half years devoting resources to further organize this industry, and return to the bargaining table with renewed strength and vigor to establish a fair participation in the enormous profits generated by videogames."

The current SAG leadership, headed by Alan Rosenberg, came to power promising to be even more aggressive than Gilbert was on all fronts. So it's hard to imagine they don't have the same goal in mind.

(picture of Hollick taken from NYTimes.com)

Remember when I reported last month that, according to Take-Two Sources, "Grand Theft Auto IV" was on track to sell over $400 million at retail in its first week? Turns out my sources underestimated by around $100 million.

As I'm reporting in Variety this morning, Take-Two and Rockstar actually sold more than $500 million worth of "GTA IV" units, totalling more than 6 million units. That demolishes the $300 million-plus record that "Halo 3" set in September.

In fact, "GTA IV" broke that record on its first day, selling $310 million, or 3.6 million units on April 29. "Halo 3" sold $170 million on its first day in the U.S. (the game didn't quite have a simultaneous worldwide release)

And to the extent that it matters -- only a bit, in my book, given how different the economic model is -- it's bigger than the closest comparable box office record we could find: $404 million over six days for "Pirates of the Caribbean: at World's End."

Given that huge first week figure and that there's likely to be a surge in sales come the holidays  (at least amongst the more permissive or clueless parents out there), I'd say "GTA IV" has a very good shot at beating "San Andreas'" franchise record of 21.5 million units.

Strauss Zelnick and his team are sure to be happy, since this make's Electronic Arts' case that it can do an even better job with the "GTA" franchise than Take-Two a bit harder to argue. It'll be interesting to see today whether investors had sales this massive built into Take-Two's stock price or if its get a bump.

(Yes, I helped make this. It's one of the things I do outside of Variety. So I'll be posting episodes on here regularly because, hey, it's my blog. But I'll try not to comment on my own stuff.)

(Given the nature of the blogosphere, I probably need to establish up front that I gave "Grand Theft Auto IV" a very positive review. Not as much of a rave as most of these reviewers, but still very positive. So even though I'm going to discuss a problem in the game here, please don't start writing "Variety hates 'GTA IV.'" Take the time to read the review if you're interested in my overall opinion.)

Anyone who read my review of "Grand Theft Auto IV" may have noticed this paragraph since it was my one really substantial complaint about the game (my not so substantial complaint about the game is that the parodies on the radio are so stridently left wing and on-the-nose that they're completely unfunny):

“GTA IV’s” only fundamental problem, however, is that the world and the story have advanced so far past the gameplay. The ability to go anywhere and do anything was revolutionary in the early “GTA” titles, but sometimes feels awkward in a game with such well-crafted characters and stories. How can players seriously believe Niko’s on a date when his girlfriend doesn’t mind that he’s carrying a knife, walking her through a 5-foot-deep pond and getting in numerous car accidents? Why can a distinctive-looking illegal immigrant commit hundreds of carjackings and nobody seems to care? There are good gameplay-related answers, of course, but they still detract from the immersive realism that “GTA IV” otherwise creates.

I thought it was worth exploring this issue a little more. Dan Houser said in my interview with him last month (extended transcript here) that "GTA IV" has a more original and sophisticated story and characters than previous franchise entries because they should match the growing sophistication of the technology, graphics, physics, etc. that power the game.

When he said it, that made sense to me, but as it turns out, I don't think it holds true in an open-world game. As better technology makes it possible to do more things in an open world, that increasingly conflicts with well developed characters and plots.

Basically, you (aka Niko Bellic) can do a lot of crazy shit in "GTA IV." And you can do it really realistically. Cause mass traffic accidents; shoot cops; commit suicide off a tall building; jump in the Hudson River; stab random people; etc., etc.

It's all great fun. Except it's Niko Bellic doing these things. The same Niko Bellic who's involved in a fairly sophisticated plot with fairly well developed supporting characters. If you choose to do crazy shit in the sandbox of Liberty City, why doesn't it impact the story and the way people in Niko's life treat him? It's impossible to care about Niko's relationship with Michelle early in the game when she doesn't care if he stabs people or dunks her in the water gets in a dozen car accidents while on a date.  Roman may be a bit of a nutcase, but based on what I know of the character, I feel like he would care if his cousin Niko had killed a dozen innocent civilians with an uzi and carjacked 50 different vehicles in the past 24 hours.

Technically speaking, of course I understand why the story and characters can't react to the infinite number of things that players can do in an open world. Artistically speaking, however, there is a fundamental conflict between sandbox and well developed narrative. When the player has opportunities to do anything, the events that the developers make happen no longer hold together in a tonally, thematically, or even logically consistent way. It's the equivalent of a novel where all the even chapters are written by a professional writer and the odd chapters are left blank for the reader to fill in with any random thought that pops into his or her head.

"GTA IV" has the most opportunities for realistic mayhem of any game in the series as well as the best characters and story. Which is why this "open world vs. narrative sophistication" conflict is more pronounced and more disturbing than any previous game in the series. Which is why I gave "GTA IV" a very good review, but not a rave.

(Thoughts? Please discuss in the comments and/or write on your own blog if you have one.)

There's a good interview in the Times of London with Leslie Benzies, the producer of the "Grand Theft Auto" games who's so media-averse he makes Dan Houser look like a cast member from "The Hills."

According to the Times, it's literally the "first interview he's ever given to the mainstream media." And there are some fun details, such as Benzies' estimate that the game cost $100 million to make and involved 1000 people at one time or another.

It's also amazing to read what the Times had to do to get Benzies on the record. Securing an interview with Dan Houser wasn't easy, but again, it was nothing compared to this:

Penetrating Rockstar North's office has proved to be trickier than stealing a virtual lorryload of heroin. Negotiations to interview Leslie Benzies - Rockstar North's president and the producer of GTA IV - have been going on for months. Questions have been submitted and briefings given. It has been repeatedly emphasised that, although Rockstar North is the engine room of GTA, equal billing must be given to the president of Rockstar Games, Sam Houser, and his brother Dan, vice-president of creative, the head honchos at the New York parent company. It makes you wonder if the only power struggle here is between rival Russian mafiosi.

There's nothing else incredibly revealing, but it's still a fun read for any GTA fan and I recommend checking it out.

Also check out:

Variety's "GTA IV" review

Excerpts from my interview with Dan Houser.

After dozens of hours of playing (still undoubtedly not enough to truly take it all in), my review of "Grand Theft Auto IV" is done and up. Is it the greatest game since "Ocarina of Time?" Am I angry and bitter that I didn't get to run an "exclusive review?" Have I been paid by some competitor of Rockstar to write a bad review?

Read it and decide for yourself. Here's the opening paragraph:

"Grand Theft Auto IV” marks a huge leap forward for videogames as an immersive experience while making little more than a few tweaks to the ultra-successful franchise's formula. The technological prowess and artistic detail are so phenomenal and the sheer amount of content is so staggeringly deep that players will find themselves drawn into Liberty City like no other fictional place. Such deep immersion sometimes highlights the flaws in “Grand Theft Auto’s” well-worn formula, but that will be little more than an asterisk for the millions of gamers sure to be carjacking their way through “GTA IV” for a long, long time to come.

And you can read the entire thing by clicking here. If you have any thoughts, please go ahead and share them in the comments.

Some further analysis of the game that didn't make the review is coming to The Cut Scene soon.

Last week I posted extended excerpts from California State Senator Leland Yee’s warning to parents about “Grand Theft Auto IV.” But he’s not the only one warning parents not to play the game before playing it. The Parents Television Council not only issued a warning, but went even further, "calling on all major retailers to reconsider any decisions to sell this game." Which of course means even adults wouldn’t be able to get their hands on it.

I thought it was worth understanding where PTC, which claims 1.2 million members and 50 chapters across the country, is coming from and what it’s telling the public about the game, so I got on the phone with the group's national grassroots director Gavin McKiernan.

Me: Have you seen the game yet? And why are you so much more concerned about this than an R-rated movie? Do you subscribe to the theory that videogames are more harmful than other media because they’re interactive?

Gavin McKiernan: We haven’t played it yet, but we know what was in the last “Grand Theft Auto” games and we don’t think they’re suddenly going to start making games that look like “Sesame Street.”

The research we’ve seen over the last decade say that violent videogames do have a greater potential to impact children negatively because of their interactive nature.

Also, people play videogames for hours upon hours. A movie is just a couple of hours.

Me: Most stores that sell videogames have a strict policy not to sell M-rated titles like “Grand Theft Auto IV” to minors. Why isn’t that enough for you?

Our concern is the lack of follow-through. The chain retail stores all claim they follow a code. That’s nice, but voluntary compliance is what it is. Every time we or others have done secret shoppers, we find 50% and up sell games to kids under the appropriate age bracket. We feel there should be some legal ramifications.

[Note: The most recent Federal Trade Commission study found that 42% of kids were able to buy an M-rated game, while 71% could buy an R-rated DVD.]

Me: So you would support laws like the one in California (overturned by a federal court last year and currently being appealed) prohibiting sales of games deemed violent to anyone under 18?

GM: Yes. The videogame industry claims its regulations should be followed. If they believe that, they should support a law to back it up.

Me: Your critics would argue that you’re treating videogames differently than other media that are protected by the First Amendment.

GM: We’re not looking to ban videogames. We’re just looking to keep adult videogames in adult hands.

Our society limits the rights of minors in all sorts of ways. No one would argue a six year-old should have unfettered access to pornography or guns. I’m not comparing videogames to guns, but adult products need to be kept away from children.

Me: But you went further than that in your statement. You don’t want stores to carry this game at all?

GM: We did ask the big chains not to carry it and if they are, we want them to treat it as an adult product. Target doesn’t carry handguns. If it wants to be consistent with its other policies, it shouldn’t sell violent games and if it does they certainly shouldn’t be accessible to kids in any way.

If adults want to purchase the game, we’re not concerned with that. But this product is available to kids and there are not enough checks. If you carry it on your shelves that means it is accessible to children.

Me: So do you think videogames have any value at all? Or do you basically think the entire medium is detrimental or at best a waste of time?

GM: There are a lot of positive videogames. There are always two sides to the coin. They can be a great instruction if you look at titles like “Flight Simulator” or “SimCity.” A lot of games teach people. But if you accept that, you also have to accept the other side. It’s hypocritical to say videogames can teach positive things but not negative things.

Me: You guys review the content in lots of movies and TV shows. Given your concerns, will somebody at PTC play “GTA IV” when it comes out?

GM: We’re not in a position to do that resource-wise. We’re stretched as thin as can be on TV shows and movies. Most likely we will rely on other guys who do more videogame reviewing.

IGN.com just came out with its review of "Grand Theft Auto IV" and it's a perfect 10 rave.

I want to note up front that I haven't played much of "GTA IV" yet, so I have absolutely no basis to claim it's not a 10. The bits of it I have seen in previews are really good. So I'm not at all accusing IGN of being dishonest in this particular case.

HOWEVER... what the hell is with the concept of an "exclusive review?" Is anyone else as troubled by this entire concept as I am?

I just got an email from an IGN publicist titled "FYI: Exclusive GTA IV Review @ IGN.com, scores 10" alerting me that "IGN.com, the Web’s leading videogame and entertainment information destination, has posted the first and only review of Grand Theft Auto IV." I'm reminded of when Game Informer ran an exclusive review of "Mass Effect" a few weeks before any other outlet and gave that game a 9.75. I was shocked since I really didn't think "Mass Effect" was that great (and said as much in my review), but of course it's very possible that the Game Informer folks just disagreed with me and that's well within their rights.

(Though I have to say I still found the Game Informer review problematic, since they gave "Mass Effect" an almost perfect score despite noting that "most of the skirmishes, which begin and end in the blink of an eye, run into balancing issues, problematic AI, and a difficulty in comprehending what is transpiring" and "it controls admirably, but it doesn’t live up to the large stage the story sets or the standards you’ve come to expect from action games and RPGs." Those are pretty significant faults.)

However, anyone who knows anything about videogame journalism knows that when an outlet gets a review copy of a game, they agree to an embargo -- not to run their review before anyone else. In these cases, Game Informer and IGN.com clearly got permission from Microsoft and Rockstar, respectively, to run their reviews before any other outlet. And it means they got their copy of the game pretty damned early in order to have the review ready to run early.

Of course, once one outlet runs a review, nobody else feels beholden to an embargo and they probably start running their reviews soon. So I expect we'll start seeing more "GTA IV" reviews popping up on websites over the weekend. (Having only gotten my copy today, you won't see one in Variety for another few days).

But being the first outlet to review a highly anticipated new videogame is a big deal. It means a major boost in Web traffic or magazine sales. Anybody who cares about "GTA IV" has probably read the IGN review already, or will very soon. And every major videogame blog is probably linking to it. I have already had several friends e-mail it to me and of course here I am writing about it.

So, we have a situation where a publisher gives a videogame website or magazine a major commercial advantage by providing an early copy of the game and an early embargo so they can run the "exclusive review." This probably results in more magazine sales or Web traffic and thus more revenue.

So, again, I'm not saying that "GTA IV" doesn't deserve a 10, or "Mass Effect" its 9.75. But how can we trust a videogame review when the outlet running it has been given a major commercial favor -- one that's worth money -- from the publisher of the game? You never see a paper or TV station getting special access from a movie studio or TV network or book publisher to run an "exclusive review." Imagine the L.A. Times or Roger Ebert touting their "exclusive review of 'Iron Man.'" Absurd, right? So why do we tolerate it for a videogame?

Exclusive reviews are really ethically troubling, for all the reasons I've outlined above. And I'll state it flat out: I personally don't trust any review labeled "exclusive." Is anyone else as disturbed by this practice as I am?

(I should note that, of course, every videogame publication and lots of newspapers, including my own, run "exclusive" news and feature stories that sometimes result from cooperation with a company. But I consider reviews  to be an entirely different beast. Even if a company cooperated on a news or feature story, the facts are still the facts. You can't report something that's incorrect <and still be doing your job, at least>. But reviews are entirely subjective, so if a critic is being influenced inappropriately in any way, the whole thing is worthless even though we as readers can't prove there's anything "wrong.")

Update (4/26): Perhaps I was wrong about one thing. Even though IGN ran its review yesterday, nobody else seems to have one up. Not even IGN's biggest competitors GameSpot and 1UP . Apparently they're all waiting on an embargo that Kotaku says is tomorrow (Sunday) morning. That truly blows my mind. In my world, if I had a story or review ready to go and was waiting on an embargo, the minute somebody else ran the same review or story, I would run mine. If a publisher or studio or whatever gave me a later embargo, tough sh*t. Any self-respecting publication with a "Grand Theft Auto IV" review ready should be running it now. If mine was ready, I know I would. (Mini-preview: I've been playing it a while and it's really good. But it's not 10/10 "best since 'Ocarina of Time'" good. It does have faults.)

Just to publicly answer a question that numerous people have asked me via e-mail and in comments: No, I didn't ask Dan Houser in our interview a few weeks ago why "GTA IV" isn't initially coming out on PC and whether it eventually will. So I don't know anything more about that than you all do (to wit: They haven't announced anything yet, so it's not coming anytime soon).

Even if you haven't been in a Blockbuster store in a while, you probably remember the importance of that "new release" outer wall. I know when I was a kid, before Netflix and before Xbox Live video downloads (the two ways I rent movies today), going to Blockbuster on a Friday and scanning the outer walls for anything new and exciting to bring home and watch that weekend was always a big and exciting event (surmise what you will of my social life as a child).

That's why it's a pretty big deal for gamers -- albeit not nearly as big a deal as it would have been a decade ago -- that Blockbuster Video is adding videogames to that valuable "new releases" real estate on the outer wall. During an interview I did with Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes about "GTA IV," he confirmed to me that his troubled chain is using the game to launch video games on the "new release" outer walls:

The magnitude of the "GTA IV" launch is a real springboard for us in some ways. Based on the huge expected popularity of this game, we made the decision to use it as the centerpiece for our move to the wall. This is a big event for Blockbuster. The new release wall is sacred ground for us. With the introduction of "GTA IV," we are going to launch a new release section of the wall with all three major platforms represented. We think that's going to attract a lot of people to our game offerings.

Blockbuster, of course, has been struggling in the face of intense competition from Netflix, online downloads (legal and illegal), the big box stores, and a general slowdown of the homevideo market. It's attempting to buy Circuit City in a bid to gets its hands on more digital devices that are used to distribute and watch movies at home.

In that context, the videogame biz, with its 50%-plus growth rates, has got to be mightily attractive. So while Blockbuster putting videogames on the new releases wall should result in greater respect for and consumption of games in the mass market, it's even more a sign of how badly the traditional entertainment industry wants a piece of the fast growing videogame coin.

California's crusading anti-game state senator Leland Yee (left) has his eyes on "Grand Theft Auto IV." His office just put out a letter in which the Democrat "URGES PARENTS TO AVOID LATEST ULTRA-VIOLENT VIDEO GAME."

For those who don't know, Yee has battled for a long time to regulate video games. In an interview with me in 2005, he said they are more comparable to alcohol and tobacco in their negative impact on children than movies and TV. Last year, a bill he sponsored to prohibit the sale of games deemed "violent" to would-be buyers under 18 was overturned by a federal district court judge. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is appealing that decision.

I must admit that I'm amazed Yee already knows that "Grand Theft Auto IV" is "ULTRA-VIOLENT." I've only gotten to play it for an hour. But if he's making a claim like that, he must have gotten to play it for several hours at least. After all, a state senator wouldn't make a claim like that if he hasn't yet played the game? He wouldn't just make assumptions, right? Man am I jealous he already got to play.

Some of Yee's assertions are just a tad bit misleading, though. So I thought I'd provide an excerpt of his press release with some interruptions for my own commentary.

“It is imperative that parents avoid purchasing this game for their children and always review the video games their children are playing,” said Yee, who is also a child psychologist.  “Unfortunately, the makers of Grand Theft Auto have a history of deceiving the ratings board and the public on the true content of their games.  Parents beware: this game undoubtedly glorifies violence, is extremely realistic and designed for adults only.”

Whether Rockstar was "deceiving the ratings board and public" about content that couldn't be accessed by anyone except hackers and which many people at the company arguably didn't know was in there is questionable.

Based on what I've played, I'd say it is "extremely realistic" and is definitely "designed for adults only." Whether it "glorifies violence" is, I suppose, debatable. There is a lot of violence, but shooting anyone and everyone is definitely not the way to win all the missions.

In June 2005, the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) and GTA’s creator Rockstar, were involved in a multi-million dollar scandal called “Hot Coffee,” in which Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, a game originally rated M by the ESRB, was found to have hidden animations allowing players to watch graphic scenes of oral sex, nudity, and simulated intercourse. 

Which could only be accessed by hackers able to download and implement a mod on their PC.

The scandal resulted in the game being pulled from most store shelves, a $2.75 million class-action settlement, and the stocks of Rockstar’s parent company (Take Two Interactive) losing nearly half their value.

The game was indeed pulled since versions with the "hot coffee" mod were re-rated "Adults Only" and most retailers won't carry AO titles. The class action settlement does cost up to $2.75 million. I have no idea where he gets the claim that Take-Two stock fell by 50%. From the time the "hot coffee" mod was released on June 9, Take-Two stock didn't really move at all that summer (even during the initial controversy in July). Later that year, and into 2006 it started falling substantially, but that only partly because of "hot coffee." Take-Two was having lots of other financial problems at the time.

The ESRB rates a game based solely on a short video clip and information supplied by the game’s maker and does not actually play or review the full content of the game.

I don't think the ESRB would say the video clips are "short," but they don't play the entire game, that's true. Of course, playing an open world game in order to rate it would probably be tough since you can play the game all the way through and miss lots of stuff.

While M-rated games are designed for adults, there is no prohibition to selling such games to children.

No legal prohibition. But all the major retailers have strict policies to enforce ESRB ratings. This sentence is highly misleading. It makes it sound like the "M" rating is just a suggestion and any kid can go in and buy the game.

In fact, the Federal Trade Commission reports that 42 percent of unaccompanied children 13 to 16 years of age can successfully purchase M-rated games.

True, but that number is substantially lower than the the number of teenagers who can buy R-rated DVDs or CDs with explicit lyrics. In fact, the FTC specifically noted that "while video game retailers have made significant progress in limiting sales of M-rated games to children, movie and music retailers have made only modest progress limiting sales." Though of course if you, like Yee, think video games are more like cigarettes than movies, this isn't too relevant.

In addition, a recent report by the National Institute on Media & the Family found complacency among retailers, parents and the gaming industry regarding video game rating awareness, enforcement and usage.  Among the report’s highlights was a retailer grade of C-, with national retailers receiving a D and rental stores collecting a failing (F) grade.  The game industry as a whole received a C and the ESRB received a C+.

Misleading. I just looked at the actual report. The C- for retailers is for their education of employees and families (called "retailers policies). While national retailers did get a D and rental stores an F, specialty retailers (like GameStop) got a B. The ESRB got a C+ for its ratings process, but a B- for its ratings education. Oh, and the parents who Yee is warning? The NIMF gave them a C and said they have to get more involved. Apparently parents are doing worse than the ESRB and specialty retailers and just the same as the industry. (It's also worth noting, though I'm sure it's obvious, that the National Institute on Media & the Family is a pretty conservative group).

I doubt many readers of this blog are sympathetic to arguments like Yee's, but it's worth considering what they're saying, since I'm sure the mainstream media is going to be all over this "controversy" in the next week as "GTA IV" comes out. Tomorrow or Monday I'm hoping to run an interview with one of the groups that's speaking out against the game.

I don't know if it's as true in other cities as L.A. and, based on my visit there a few weeks ago, New York, but Los Angeles is currently flooded with sexy/cool "Grand Theft Auto IV" billboards that tell you nothing about the game except the attitude of its characters (which, of course, is what Rockstar's Dan Houser told me is exactly the point).

But there's a giant triptych downtown that's apparently the coolest "GTA IV" ad of them all. I don't go downtown much, but I kind of want to just to see this (which I got off off a creative commons license on Flickr after being tipped by Kotaku)

(Note: If you haven’t yet, I hope you’ll read the three feature articles I wrote based in large part on my visit to Rockstar’s offices a few weeks ago. There’s a profile of Dan Houser and the company, an analysis of how “GTA IV” will impact movie and TV viewership and DVD sales, and a look at the music in the game and Rockstar’s unique partnership with Amazon.com. More details are in this blog post.)

Sitting down with Dan Houser in a conference room at Rockstar’s offices on the fourth floor or Take-Two’s HQ in the east village of Manhattan isn’t nearly as anxiety-inducing as it might seem.

Sure, Rockstar’s co-founder and creative VP talks very rarely to the press, but it’s not because he’s shy or weird or crazy or anything like that. In fact, after our approximately 90 minute talk on the record, we gabbed like fanboys about other crap for a half hour off the record.

Dan Houser is, however, really really reluctant to have people in the press talking about him instead of his games. That’s why interviews are rare and his staff pushes very hard to put “GTA IV” itself first and foremost in any coverage when he does talk to the press. There aren’t even any recent photos of him available. That one on the right that I found on Google is at least a few years out of date. The Dan Houser I met is a little older and a little balder.

So try and imagine that and try to imagine him talking in his British accent as I present some extended excerpts from our interview on April 4. And when I say “extended,” I mean “extended.” This isn’t everything, but it’s a lot. Frankly, I just think everything in here is really interesting and worth sharing. I’ve got him talking why “GTA IV” is the first truly original game in the series, why storage capacity is more important than console power, why Rockstar doesn’t make first person games, why he doesn’t want to make a “GTA” movie, why he considers the upcoming episodic content an “experiment,” what he has to say to critics of “GTA’s” sex and violence, and why he thinks his games deserve to stand beside movies, not other videogames (amongst many other topics).

If this seems way too long to handle, I recommend just reading the profile article, which has the best points and quotes in it. But I think a lot of Cut Scene readers will find a more thorough transcript as interesting as I do. And if you have any thoughts on what Dan said, please discuss in the comments.

Me: I think this is a great opportunity for us at Variety to look at a major game launch and how it compares to the other media we’re used to covering…

Dan Houser: It’s funny all of that stuff. A lot of our competitors in the game sphere – all they want to talk about is business. Because they have creative guys making the games but they run it like, “how can we compete?” We want to kill that stuff in some ways. We want to have very successful launches. We’ve had successful launches before but our angle is always creativity.

Mainly because we’re in a position where we see games slowly gaining credibility as an art form as a medium. A lot of other people want to purely look at that from a business angle. For those of us who spend years slaving over making the thing, the thing isn’t “We make this much money.” That isn’t interesting. The thing is, “Does it resonate with people and take an interesting place in their cultural fabric?" That’s an interesting story to us.

I often -- without mentioning any names -- think some of our big competitor titles, their marketing campaign is, “Look at our great marketing campaign!” Ours is, “Look at the game, experience the game hopefully.” Then we want to have further conversations with people once they play the game properly. But the two things we want to avoid are talking purely about this as a business -- its not, this is a creative activity. Obviously its young and its not fully mature but we are trying to move it forward as quickly as we can. And obviously the counter to that is everyone wants to go on the controversy story. I’m like, “We can talk about anything in context.” Movies moved beyond that years ago.

Me: So I’m not going to be able to quote you talking about how you “exploit your intellectual property on an annual basis” or something?

DH: No, no, no. We try and protect it. The intellectual property is the main asset in the company. That’s why “GTA” is still relevant 10 years later. We haven’t put one out every year. We haven’t fleeced it. And we haven’t put it on 50 different formats. We’re not per se against moving properties between different media but for “GTA” it just seems so perfect as a game. You lose a lot of what makes it what it is if you move it into being, say, a movie. It just never seemed interesting creatively.

Me: Well, I was going to ask you that later, but since you brought it up… You guys must have been approached so many different times by so many people who want to talk about making a movie.

This week's Variety (the weekly magazine, not the daily paper) features three separate stories on "Grand Theft Auto IV" (all by that guy up there on the top right of the page). It's an extravaganza that I hope is worthy of the biggest videogame of the year. And it's not over yet. Coming this weekend - when I finish writing it all up - will be extended highlights from my 90 minute sitdown interview with Rockstar's co-founder and VP creative Dan Houser, who videogame fans know does not talk to the press often, to say the least.

For now, I hope you'll check out the Variety pieces:

-Everyone's asking whether "GTA IV" will impact the "Iron Man" opening. But while the jury's still out on that one, the jury is in on other media: a big videogame opening impacts both TV ratings and DVD sales. Read it here.

-Why does Dan Houser think "GTA IV" should be compared to movies, not videogames? And why does he aspire to "not being called an asshole?" Find out in my profile of how Rockstar became, well... a Rockstar, and why Houser says "GTA IV" is the first game in the franchise that's not heavily influenced by other media. It's a truly original creation. Check it out here.

-GTA IV features hundreds of songs on 18 different in-game radio stations (16 music, two talk). How does the team at Rockstar pick them? And will their deal with Amazon.com to allow downloads of songs heard in the game via a single click revolutionize the way we find music and the way artists and labels make money from videogames? It's all right here.

Breaking news on Variety... I have learned from good sources who know what Take-Two is selling into retail that "Grand Theft Auto IV" is poised to gross over $400 million worldwide in its first week, beating the record set in September by "Halo 3," which grossed $300 million.

Also, while I'm always wary of such comparisons since spending on movies vs. games is so wildly different, it's worth noting that "GTA IV" will be right on par with the biggest movie debut of all time, "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," which grossed $404 million worldwide its first day.

All the details are available right here on Variety.com

Also of note to Cut Scene readers is that I spoke to GameStop's senior VP or merchandising Bob McKenzie for the story. He's being a little more conservative with his estimates right now than the people I spoke to who know what Take-Two is selling to all retailers worldwide. Right now McKenzie thinks "GTA IV" will be a little smaller for his chain than "Halo 3" was.

On the other hand, Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes told me that he expects "Grand Theft Auto IV" to "likely to do two times the volume that 'Halo 3' did" for his store. (More on Blockbuster's plans for "GTA IV" coming in another post soon.)

But I also asked McKenzie how the two different console versions of the game were looking for GaneStop and he shared this:

"Looking at the way pre-orders are trending, we're expecting it to be a little stronger on 360 than PS3," he told me, though he (unsurprisingly) wouldn't go into details on what the exact percentage would be.

So... we've had the poll on Joystiq, we have the GameFly rental data, we've had the debates about whether the highest install base of the 360 and the exclusive downloadable content would trump "GTA's" historical association with the Playstation console... and now we have our first solid data. It looks like Xbox 360 is going to beat PS3 for this game.

HOWEVER... it's worth noting that the 360 currently has a significant lead over the PS3. As of February, it was 9.6 million compared to 3.8 million in the U.S., according to NPD. So if the 360:PS3 ratio of "GTA IV" sales is closer than that, like say 60/40, that has to be considered something of a win for Sony, as it implies a higher tie ratio for their console and could potentially sell more PS3's than 360's. That would at least tighten the race between the two.

Here's the latest rental data from GameFly (the Netflix-esque service for videogames). No surprise that "Grand Theft Auto IV" for 360 is currently their number 1 game, given how huge that title is going to be and the superior install base of the 360.

But it is notable that while "GTA IV" for PS3 is way back in seventh place, behind titles like "Mario Kart Wii" (OK that's not so big a surprise), "Dark Sector," "R6V2," "Viking: Battle for Asgard" and "Army of Two." I guess what we're seeing is that the difference in install base amongst avid gamers means that recent releases that got mediocre critical receptions like "Dark Sector" and "Viking" on 360 still outpoll the most anticipated PS3 games of the year. If "GTA IV" on PS3 doesn't pull ahead to at least no. 3 by the time it comes out, that's probably not a good sign.

Lots of other great sites have detailed "Grand Theft Auto IV's" multi-player, so I'm not going to go too in-depth. But I did get an opportunity to play for about an hour during my visit to Rockstar last week (which will be turning into what I hope will be an in-depth package for Variety in a week or two) and I have a few thoughts I wanted to be sure and note here:

-I counted at least 14 different multi-player modes, though I only got to play 4 of them. I think I agreed not to list all the titles, but suffice to say they appear to range from standard deathmatches to car races to cops vs. crooks to ones that involve controlling territory and ones that actually focus on Hillary Clinton's favorite "GTA" activity: carjacking.

-The coolest moment by far: Starting a team deathmatch on "GTA IV's" equivalent of Liberty island, hopping into a helicopter with my teammates (far more experienced Rockstar employees) and taking the action all the way up to the top of a skyscraper near the Empire State Building. One person actually hopped off the chopper onto the Empire State Building and was sniping from there.

The point: the fact that "GTA IV" doesn't limit multi-player to small maps from the overall game, but uses all of Liberty City, allows for crazy variations. Of course, if you're playing with fewer than 16 people, the ability to run all the way around that relatively large map could be frustrating. You have to be careful about how you design your games. Luckily, "GTA IV" seems to allow lots of customization in designing the multi-player matches.

-Also awesome: Jumping in a boat and being chased by somebody else who's in a helicopter.

-I fell behind in a race and once I realized I wasn't going to win, I decided to have fun f*cking with everyone else. So I piled up a few cars at a bottleneck in the course, climbed up to a point over the the bottleneck, and started shooting at my opponents as they got stuck and tried to work their way around. Maybe not the most gentlemanly way to play, but great fun.

-There's only a few character customization options, but I played as a woman, just to shake things up (no surprise, the match with Rockstar employees and another journalist was a total sausage fest). There's something very unusual and cool about seeing a woman in "GTA." One who's not a hooker, that is.

-The ranking system is based on collecting money, which you get for achieving various goals in the games.  But you don't just get money for killing somebody. After you kill them, they leave money on the ground and you have to go collect it. And obviously other people can collect it too. I'm not too sure how I feel about that. It fits the "GTA" aesthetic, but picking up items to get rewards feels a little old-fashioned compared to all the detailed and various rewards -- sometimes to the point of absurdity -- in "Call of Duty 4" or "Rainbow Six Vegas 2."

-Conclusion: There's a lot I still don't know, but based on my hour of playing, I was comfortable enough to e-mail my list of friends I play Xbox Live with (which lately has been all "CoD 4") and let them know: "'GTA IV' is going to be our game from April 29 until at least the fall."

(thanks to Kotaku for the image)

GTA IV has a new trailer and I've got to say, it's pretty kick ass. What I like is that -- with the exception of the final shot on the rooftops -- it doesn't just try to rip off a standard movie trailer, which is what most videogame trailers do. It's a really interesting, non-standard music choice, and I think it captures the diversity (I hope) of the game characters and setting really well, rather than trying to encapsulate a narrative. That's what most games trailers do and it's especially annoying given that the narrative is often less deep in the game than in the trailer.

Here it is. If you're under 17, you shouldn't be watching:

Last Friday, Rockstar Games was in L.A. giving journalists an in-depth peek at “Grand Theft Auto IV,” along with a look at the improvements in “Bully: Scholarship Edition,” the 360/Wii version of 2006’s awesome “GTA at prep school.”

Demo’s were done at the Chateau Marmont hotel (but of course… where else would Rockstar do demo’s but Chateau Marmont?). I can’t deny that I was a little distracted the whole time wondering how many times Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears ever collapsed (from exhaustion, of course) in the very room I was sitting in. But once I got past that, I was just as impressed as I hoped to be by “GTA IV.”

Rockstar’s VP of development Jeronimo Barrera (who led me through the demo) wasn’t shy about how much of an advance his team thinks the game is. “’Grand Theft Auto 3’ changed the industry tremendously, but in many ways this is a bigger leap,” he boasted. (Sure, it’s kind of a canned line. But he sure seemed to believe it.)

Let’s start with the way he’s not right: Fundamentally, “GTA IV” is the same game we’re used to – the basic structure created in 2001’s “GTA III.” It’s a third person action title about a newcomer to Liberty City who meets lots of people, goes on missions both to earn money and fulfill a personal goal, and is capable of wreaking total havoc along the way.

We’ve also got the series’ trademark character types, from thugs to funny small-time gangsters to a stoic lead. Protagonist Niko is an Eastern European immigrant who is aptly described by one guy he meets as “a badass mofo who ain’t afraid to take cats down.”

But how is Jeronimo right? Graphically, “GTA IV” is really a cut above. Not so much in the minutiae, but the depth. As we’ve come to expect from “GTA,” there are no loading times, but the number of people and vehicles, the variety of settings, and the believable actions of them all are tremendous. Seeing the
Manhattan skyline from Brooklyn (or Liberty city’s versions of them) is just plain awesome.

Ditto the dynamic character and vehicle actions. Shoot a guy in the knee and he hobbles. Blow out a car’s right wheel and it veers in that direction. Pull a gun on a civilian and she’ll beg for her life. Liberty City feels alive and responsive. Even though  it’s not as big in area as San Andreas, there’s more richness and depth along the way, which I consider a very welcome tradeoff.

Finally, “GTA IV” attempts to seriously integrate modern day technology in a realistic way. Niko has a cell phone that he can use for any number of purposes. We’re used to cell phones that occasionally ring with player instructions, as in “No More Heroes,” but Niko can place calls on his and get responses. In the example I saw, he called 9-1-1 so he could –- you guessed it -– jack a police car. I also saw Niko use the police car’s computer to look up a criminal’s address. And I’m told “GTA IV” features in-game Internet access as well. I didn’t get to poke and prod those applications, so I have no idea how deep they go, but the idea of a character who can proactively and dynamically use modern communication tools is a qualitative leap forward in gameplay if it works.

There are some other less impressive but still welcome advancements, like a weapons system that works perfectly well –- nothing amazing, but finally “GTA” is on par with other action games. In-game music looks like it’s going to once again be ultra-deep and will probably feature some new on-demand twists we haven’t seen before. Personally, though I was kind of enjoying the right-wing talk station. It just felt right on a respite in the car between shooting sh*t up.

Not as much to say about “Bully: Scholarship Edition.” If you never played the original “Bully,” I highly recommend it. On PS2 it was my second favorite game of 2006 (only behind “Okami") and really wowed me with its solid gameplay and satirical eye. “Scholarship Edition” amps up the graphics, adds a few amusing missions and classroom activities, and includes some offline multi-player mini-games. Perhaps enough to make those who missed out on “Bully” first time around to feel like they got something for the wait, but not exactly a tricked out "director's cut" for those who have played it before.

(For a full gallery of new "Grand Theft Auto IV" screenshots, click here.)

With the release of "Grand Theft Auto IV" coming up -- and, let's be honest, my wanting to start this blog off with a bang -- I thought it was worth letting readers know about a major story in the intersection of Hollywood and videogames, arguably the biggest ever, that almost happened last spring.

For years, everyone in Hollywood has wanted to get their hands on "Grand Theft Auto." Big name producers and senior execs at major studios all did their best to convince Rockstar to give up the film rights to their franchise. But the brothers Houser were reluctant, and who can blame them? "Grand Theft Auto" is a huge cash cow and has a bigger profile in the young male demo than most TV shows and movies. And God knows there have been a lot of awful videogame-based movies that hurt the property more than they helped. So, even amongst those able to navigate the Rockstar bureaucracy and talk to the right people, the answer was always "no."

But last year, something changed. By the spring, a deal was virtually in place with one of the six major studios to start developing a "Grand Theft Auto" movie. Eminem was quite possibly going to star.

I can't be sure of the reasons why Rockstar was finally open to a movie deal, though I suspect it had to do with the new management at parent company Take 2. This was soon after the board was ousted following a financial scandal. The new (and current) chairman, Strauss Zelnick, has significant ties to the traditional media industry given his previous posts as CEO of BMG music and president of 20th Century Fox.

How close was this deal to happening? Reporters at Variety (and, I have since learned, other publications) were preparing their stories based on conversations with the studio in question. Internally at Take 2, people were talking about it as a done deal. Then at the last minute, it all fell apart. I'm told Take 2 couldn't finalize terms with the studio, though I'm not sure if it was a purely financial issue or if, in the end, the publisher got cold feet about giving away rights to its baby.

Who knows if Rockstar will ever be willing to make a movie deal again. But for those who think that in principle the publisher would never be interested, last year's events prove them wrong. Perhaps one day it'll happen. Maybe even before the "Halo" film.

Update (2/4/08, 4:25 PM): Someone from Rockstar pinged me with this statement, attributed to VP/co-founder Dan Houser, that they have been giving to other journalists who apparently called to ask about the above story. It doesn't really contract my post since, as I said, no deal was ever in place. But I certainly stand behind my reporting that it came awful close.

Rockstar was not involved in this project in any shape or form nor is it something that we're currently interested in.  There was no GTA movie in the works as far as Rockstar is concerned. Some movie producers were trying to put something together to entice us to make a movie, as studios and production teams frequently have done in the past. This proposal was no more interesting than the numerous others we receive. We never entertained proceeding with the project.