The City That Gave the World Grand Theft Auto
Have you ever wondered where one of the best selling video games’ series of all time hails from?
Grand Theft Auto — one of the best selling video game series of all time. These games have touched the hearts of gamers from around the world and it continues to be one of the most dominant names in video game history.
Grand Theft Auto has been a hit with video game fans ever since its first release back in 1997. The game series has had an irreversible impact on the industry, with the biggest titles sold for the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 being the Grand Theft Auto series.
But have you ever wondered where this brilliant video game series got its roots from? Well let me tell you…
The story of DMA Design
It all begins in a city on the east coast of Scotland — Dundee.
Dundee is my home city. A small place with a lot going on, situated on the east coast of Scotland in the United Kingdom. A city of many firsts, a city of many achievements and a city I am proud to call my home.
Dundee is the United Kingdom’s first ever UNESCO City of Design. Designated by UNESCO back in 2014, this title was awarded to the city’s growing design industry — and video games played a big part of this decision.
Everyone who is a fan of Grand Theft Auto knows that the game series was created and distributed by Rockstar North, however it was not always called this. Originally, Rockstar North was known as DMA Design, a video game company which was founded by David Jones, Mike Dailly, Russell Kay and Steve Hammond.
David Jones became redundant after the closure of Dundee’s Timex factory and the redundancy money he received went towards an Amiga 1000 computer. With this new computer, David began writing the code for a video game entitled Menace.
David met fellow friends Mike Dailly, Russell Kay and Steve Hammond at the Kingsway Amateur Computer Club back in the 1980s. There, they all discussed things from video games to computers and creating their own video games which they started to do together.
They started a new business under the name DMA Design — referencing the Amiga programming guide - Direct Memory Access.
Their first base of operations was a quirky wee upper floor area within a small building based in the city’s Nethergate area near the centre.
Throughout the years in that small studio, DMA Design started designing video games and on Valentine’s Day in 1991, the team released the world-famous Lemmings. Lemmings went on to be DMA Design’s most successful video game to date at that time, selling over 20 million copies, and still holds a cultural impact to this day.
It was only a few years later when the team at DMA Design started planning a new game called Race’n’Chase. When Race’n’Chase entered production, a four-step plan was created by the crew to allow production to proceed smoothly. However, none of the planned target date were met.
During the game development, Race’n’Chase was later renamed to Grand Theft Auto, an American term for motor-vehicle theft.
After two and a half years in development, Grand Theft Auto was finally released.
A cause for concern
After Grand Theft Auto hit the shelves, it was immediately condemned by governments from around the world. There were protests surrounding the game in the United Kingdom and Australia, whilst in Brazil it was banned altogether. The UK Parliament’s House of Lords even held a debate in relation to the release of Grand Theft Auto.
This was due to concern surrounding the potential impact it could have on young people. Many adults feared it might influence their kids towards violence and a life of crime. Governments feared that the influence it would have on gamers would be bad. In reality, the opposition to the game and its content actually achieved the exact opposite effect. Due to the controversy caused by the game upon release, sales increased massively, making the Grand Theft Auto series one of the top selling gaming titles of all time.
Several government’s attitudes towards Grand Theft Auto actually helped influence more sales for the game and by November 1998, the game sold over one million units.
Back in Dundee, the DMA Design team started to grow themselves. The team eventually outgrew their former Nethergate headquarters which led to the business moving into a new premises based in the city’s Technology Park.
At this time, DMA Design also produced expansion packs for the game including London 1961 and 1969 and later went on to create the second Grand Theft Auto game, Grand Theft Auto II.
As times moved forward, DMA Design moved away from Dundee and set up a new headquarters in Edinburgh, roughly about 50 miles away from its original home. Eventually, DMA Design rebranded to Rockstar North in 2002 after being purchased by Take-Two Interactive, a firm based in the United States.
The original team at DMA Design stated in their blog that the DMA Design era was over.
The most popular video game series of all time
Grand Theft Auto has irreversibly changed video gaming industry, becoming the most popular video game series of all time.
With the success that came with Grand Theft Auto, it has also had its fair share of controversy over the years and its reputation has been called into question. In 2008 and 2009, the Guinness World Records named Grand Theft Auto as the most controversial game series of all time with over 4,000 articles and publications being published regarding the subject.
Regardless, Grand Theft Auto continues to be a hit with video game lovers and it continues to be referenced heavily in popular culture.
We have seen in the past few weeks alone the crave for a sixth mainstream Grand Theft Auto game, this was shown when the term was trending on Twitter after Rockstar North hinted at this, but unfortunately this wasn’t the case. Only time will tell but who knows, we might see a new Grand Theft Auto game of some sorts this decade.
Dundee’s legacy with Grand Theft Auto
What is amazing however is that even though Rockstar North has now left Dundee and set up shop in Edinburgh, they have never forgotten about Dundee. They continue to reference the city and its culture into their video games.
In Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Rockstar North paid homage to Dundee by featuring one of the city’s landmarks — the RRS Discovery on a billboard in the game.
Also in Vice City, there is a radio station entitled Wave 103, this is actually a reference to Wave FM, a radio station in Dundee which was previously named Wave 102 during Vice City’s release in 2002.
In Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, there is another billboard which advertises an album entitled “Let’s Go to Dundee!!!”
Within Grand Theft Auto V there is a restaurant called “The Sundae Post” which is in fact a reference to a Scottish newspaper, “The Sunday Post” which is published in Dundee.
The influence of Grand Theft Auto being made in Dundee has helped make the city a video games powerhouse. Since Rockstar North left Dundee, new video game businesses have been launched, most notably 4J Studios which has created console versions of Minecraft, another very successful and critically acclaimed video game.
Dundee hasn’t shied away from its influence with video games since their departure. Abertay University, one of the city’s two universities, has recently been named — for the sixth time — the best place to study video game design in Europe.
Also in Dundee, Abertay University hosts Dare Academy, a competition where students from the university come together as teams to create a video game.
Something Dundee should be proud of
Grand Theft Auto is Dundee born and bred, it is a creation the city should be proud of. To think that Dundonians created the best video game series of all time is something to be very proud of too.
Grand Theft Auto may not be developed in Dundee anymore, but it will always be a Dundee creation.
References
- DMA Design Blog — https://dmadesign.net/about/
- Gamesradar — https://www.gamesradar.com/uk/the-complete-history-of-grand-theft-auto/
- Gamespot — https://web.archive.org/web/20000226032009/http://headline.gamespot.com/news/98_11/16_vg_grand/index.html
- Newzoo — https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/grand-theft-auto-popular-game-franchise-western-world/
