“They don’t care about games”: Rockstar veteran explains why Sony and Microsoft cannot compete with GTA

Players have never received a full-fledged GTA alternative from platform holders.

The release of Grand Theft Auto VI is approaching, and players are once again discussing the Rockstar Games franchise. Over the years, many “GTA-style” games have been released, yet other developers have never managed to deliver a full-fledged alternative.

Rockstar veteran David O'Reilly, who worked as an environment artist on GTA V, Red Dead Redemption 2, and the upcoming GTA VI, highlighted a specific aspect of the company's workflow that sets it apart from many other industry peers. Management does not resort to mass layoffs to cut costs, followed by rehiring new staff when the need arises again:

As a result, O'Reilly explains, Rockstar “retained almost all the knowledge and experience accumulated in-house.” For example, during his time at the studio, he met people who had joined Rockstar North back when it was still called DMA Design (the name was changed in 2002). Meanwhile, many other industry players fail to grasp the importance of institutional knowledge continuity:

O'Reilly also believes that Take-Two, Rockstar's parent company, is similarly indifferent to knowledge continuity, yet gives the studio complete creative freedom because it recognizes that “Rockstar is the goose that lays the golden eggs” and “because [Take-Two management] is terrified of breaking anything in that winning formula. […] They let Rockstar quietly make their great games, and this approach has worked for a long time and continues to work.”

The release of Grand Theft Auto VI is scheduled for November 19, 2026, on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles.