Preview
One of the original developers of the top-down Grand Theft Auto has revealed that GTA was on the brink of getting canned due to development issues.
In a candid interview with Gamasutra, Gary Penn a developer at DMA Design, claimed it was “a real mess for years.”
Penn added, “It never moved on, it never went anywhere. It never really felt like it was going anywhere. It was almost canned. The publisher, BMG Interactive, wanted to can it, as it didn’t seem to be going anywhere.”
The main issues according to Penn was the constant crashing and the handling of the cars, Penn explained that the police behaved really badly, and the way that they originally worked was, “just rubbish.”
Apparently a bug where the police were super agressive showed them that the sandbox carnage was the only way GTA was going to work, “It was less about the mission stuff, which we always thought was another mess, and more about just general play — just being able to piss around.”
So there you have it a bug made GTA into what it is today, and think if BGM interactive had canned it would we have GTA in its form now? Probably – but it certainly wouldn’t have ended up at Take-Two – the world really does work in weird and wonderful ways.
Link: Joystiq