Film 04Company Origin Stories
Grand Theft Auto
A small team in Dundee was making a game where you played the cop. Then, as one of them remembers it, the police cars broke.
- Runtime
- 11:24
- Chapters
- 8
- Spans
- 1983 – today
the glitch? one developer's memory.
The odd beginning
It started with
a glitch.Allegedly.
In 1995, a small team in Dundee, Scotland, was making a cops-and-robbers game where you played the cop. Then, as one of them remembers it, the police cars broke and started ramming the player off the road. Nobody fixed it. That glitch is where Grand Theft Auto began.
A factory apprentice, tiny creatures walking off cliffs, a publicist paid to cause outrage, and a billion dollars in three days: how a broken cop game from a rainy Scottish city became the biggest crime story in entertainment.
Frames from the film
Chapters
- 00The Police Car That Wouldn't Stop0:00
- 01The Apprentice1983–19911:06
- 02The Bug1994–19972:50
- 03Outrage for Sale1997–19984:38
- 04The Brothers1990–20016:11
- 05The Empire2002–20207:42
- 06The Longest Wait2013–20269:15
- 07The Verdict10:38
A note on accuracy
The police "bug" is Gary Penn's recollection ("I think it was a bug"). The near-cancellation and the outrage campaign are the developers' accounts; the menu story is a programmer's joke. Sales figures are from Take-Two and Guinness World Records. Game scenes are our own animated recreations. Dialogue is dramatised.
Spot a mistake?
Send us the timecode and a link to your source. If you're right, we pin the correction.
Email a correctionSources
17 cited- 01Hansard, House of Lords (1997)
- 02Gary Penn interview, Game Developer
- 03Race'n'Chase design docs, Engadget
- 04GameSpot
- 05VGC
- 06Film Stories
- 07The Digital Antiquarian
- 08Abertay University
- 09Steve Hammond: about DMA Design
- 10Tech Monitor
- 11Kotaku
- 12US FTC (2006)
- 13Guinness World Records: fastest entertainment property to gross $1 billion
- 14Guinness World Records: most viewed videogame reveal on YouTube in 24 hours
- 15Take-Two 10-Q
- 16Axios (2022)
- 17Bloomberg
Grand Theft Auto, GTA and Rockstar Games are trademarks of Take-Two Interactive; Lemmings and PlayStation of Sony Interactive Entertainment. Shown for identification. Game scenes are our own animated recreations. Not affiliated with or endorsed by any of these companies.
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