A former Rockstar Games producer has explained why the developer’s PC versions usually come long after the console version.
In an interview with YouTuber KiwiTalkz, former Rockstar Games producer John Ricchio explained that starting with consoles and going to PC is actually easier. Because consoles are more constrained, it’s simpler to start with the less powerful option and scale up, as opposed to building a game for PC and trying to scale it down.
“It’s always better to start with the constraints and then extend,” said Ricchio. “Because shrinking is a lot harder than extending. It’s way harder to make your game performant than it is to just be like ‘Oh, we’ve got extra room? Cool, we can deoptimize or make things more shiny.'”
He also noted that when he was at Rockstar in the early 2010s, many conversations were had over the value of resources. For instance, there was a PC build of Red Dead Redemption during the game’s development, even though a PC port didn’t release until over a decade after launch. However, the team had to decide whether a PC version of Red Dead Redemption was more valuable than putting people on Grand Theft Auto 5.
“It’s always those conversations,” he said. “It’s never any specific, you know, anti-any platform. It’s just, is it worth spending the time and effort to get something running on Switch, or something like that, or Wii, who knows? And I think you have to make those calls per game, and in a lot of cases there are legitimate hardware limitations, right?
“But as time has gone on, I feel like the consoles are definitely closer, so it doesn’t quite feel as bad, but it just becomes about, ‘If you’re working on that, you’re not working on something else,’ usually. And so if you’re spending money on that, you’re not spending money on something else. And so that’s where the business case has to be there. There has to be enough of a business reason to do some of those ports, or the lift has to be so light that it’s like, ‘Oh, it’ll be super easy to do.’ And it’s rarely super light; there’s always something that you’ve got to do.”
Some fans hoped that the increased popularity of PC over the last decade would push Rockstar to have a PC version of GTA 6 on day one. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Of course, Rockstar has thousands of employees and close to a dozen studios, but when you’re trying to make one of the most ambitious games of all-time, Ricchio’s argument about where to put resources likely remains a factor. It’s likely an all-hands on deck operation to make sure the game comes out on time and in good shape.
Grand Theft Auto 6 will release on November 19th for Xbox Series X|S and PS5.
Cade Onder is a freelancer for IGN’s news team. He covers all things entertainment, including gaming, film, and more. You can find him on Twitter @Cade_Onder.
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