A former member of staff at Rockstar who worked on a raft of Grand Theft Auto games has pulled their behind-the-scenes development blog after someone from the studio got in touch.
Former Rockstar Games technical director Obbe Vermeij started the blog on November 11 to discuss their time at Rockstar North, the Scottish studio behind the Grand Theft Auto series.
A number of eye-catching blog posts delved into the development of the older Grand Theft Auto games and even other Rockstar projects. One revealed fresh insight into the collapsed development of Agent, a game Rockstar has never formally cancelled, and further posts discussed other scrapped projects, such as a Scottish zombie survival game.
But it seems some staff at Rockstar North weren’t thrilled by the revelations, and Vermeij has now pulled all posts from the blog. In a statement, Vermeij said: “Today I got an email from Rockstar North. Apparently some of the OGs there are upset by my blog. I genuinely didn’t think anyone would mind me talking about 20 year old games but I was wrong. Something about ruining the Rockstar mystique or something.
“Anyway, this blog isn’t important enough to me to piss off my former colleagues in Edinburgh so I’m winding it down. I’ll maybe just leave a few articles with anecdotes that don’t affect anyone but me. I would love for Rockstar to open up about development of the trilogy themselves, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen anytime soon. Maybe I’ll try again in a decade or two.”
In a follow-up post on X/Twitter, Vermeij claimed Rockstar hadn’t “forced” his hand. Rather, “it was just a former colleague letting me know that several people in North didn’t like the Blog. That’s all.”
Vermeij’s comments revolve around the secrecy Rockstar maintains about its video games and how they’re made. The long-running company keeps its cards close to its chest, rarely talking about the development of its games or cancelled projects. Sam Houser, Rockstar co-founder and president, hasn’t given an interview to press in years.
However, in recent years various media reports have shone a light on the culture and working conditions at Rockstar, particularly for the development of 2018 smash hit Red Dead Redemption 2. Since then, Rockstar has reportedly made significant improvements to the way it makes games, which are of keen interest ahead of the reveal of Grand Theft Auto 6.
Rockstar isn’t alone in its commitment to secrecy. The video game industry, particularly in the big-budget, triple-A space, is often criticised for a lack of transparency, not just in terms of development, but also in terms of success. Unlike Hollywood, for example, the video game industry does not by by default report sales and revenue figures for individual titles.
Next month marks the 25th anniversary of Rockstar Games. It plans to release the hotly anticipated debut trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6 at some point in early December. Perhaps the company plans its own retrospectives on its past output. For now, though, Vermeij’ blog will not be among them.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
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