Rumor: Dan Houser Left Rockstar Due to a Falling Out With His Brother
"The company's direction" is said to be the source of dispute between the two.
Nearly six years after the departure of Dan Houser, the co-founder of Rockstar, GTA V's Executive Producer, and the writer of all Grand Theft Auto titles since the London 1969 DLC for the original 1997 GTA, from the company he himself co-created, the reason for his exit still remains unknown to this day, leaving the door wide open for speculation.
Recently, the conversation was joined by Tez2, a well-known GTA insider and data miner, who confirmed the suspicion of many by saying that Dan's departure was due to the direction his brother and Rockstar Games' current president, Sam Houser, was taking the studio.
University of Oxford
Citing two former Rockstar employees, Tez2 claimed that Dan "left over a disagreement with his brother about the company's direction," effectively ruling out theories that he departed over Rockstar's union-busting practices or a conflict with the studio's owner Take-Two.
Beyond that, little has been revealed, leaving it unclear which particular aspects of Sam's strategy prompted Dan to walk away from his own creation, and with Rockstar having released nothing since Dan's exit – not counting the defective Definitive Edition – there's no way for us to gauge those elements for ourselves from the company's new projects.
Presumably, it may become clearer once GTA VI finally arrives – a game some worry could suffer a drastic dip in quality without the series' main "story-guy." As for Dan himself, he insists the community has nothing to fear and that the game's story will be "great" even without him.
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