Dan Houser Launches New Video Game Development Company
Dan Houser, the co-founder and former creative director of Rockstar Games, has established a new company called Absurd Ventures. The company aims to create narratives, personalities, and universes across various platforms, including video games, among others. Houser, who is 49 years old, departed from Rockstar Games in 2020.
“Storytelling. Philanthropy. Ultraviolence.” That’s the tagline for Absurd Ventures, launched with the two-minute video below, which shows more than tells the company’s creative, abstract, and exciting vibe. However, the press release offers a more concrete description, describing Absurd as “building narrative worlds, creating characters, and writing stories across genres, regardless of medium, to produce live-action and animation; video games and other interactive content; books, graphic novels, and scripted podcasts.”
To say that Houser was a central figure in his 22 years at Rockstar, one of gaming’s all-time success stories, would be an understatement. He founded the legendary studio in 1998 with his brother Sam Houser, Jamie King, Terry Donovan and Gary Foreman. As Rockstar grew, he remained an integral part of the company’s creative efforts, including producing five Grand Theft Auto games and writing every GTA installment to date (including Grand Theft Auto V) and both Red Dead Redemption titles. In addition, he did voice work for Grand Theft Auto III and its two separate expansions.
