In today’s video, I’m going back 20 years to talk about what it used to be like to check out Rockstar’s games ahead of release. Why? Because of GTA VI being in the news and because, as I noted last week, they’ve been overdue to show more of the game. That got me thinking about how Rockstar previews used to work and the cultural moment in which they occurred.
As I looked at my old MTV News coverage, two things stood out about the Rockstar of old vs. the Rockstar that’s about to debut an extended look for GTA VI on Netflix later this month:
Rockstar was way more prolific then - I previewed three of their games in 2006 alone
Rockstar was at least perceived as more dangerous then - their games scared people! And maybe explaining themselves to MTV News back then felt like more of a necessary thing to do
(If you’d prefer to watch this video on YouTube, it’ll be uploaded soon to my channel.)
Accompanying the video, I’ve got a batch of excerpts from you, all from my time covering video games for MTV News (2005-2009). These pieces, most of which involve previews and interviews conducted at Rockstar’s NYC headquarters, would have been lost to time, if not for the Internet Archive setting up a digital MTV News collection. I am so grateful for that…
The likes of MTV sure aren’t bankrolling my video game coverage anymore. Game File is a reader-supported publication, and it’s your backing that makes my reporting possible. Good news! I’m currently running Game File’s first big sale of 2026. You can get a one-year subscription for 23% off. Click here to take advantage of the limited-time offer. And thank you for your support!
The First Rule Of Ping-Pong Club: Talk About Rockstar’s Table Tennis Game
May 4, 2006, for MTV News [Archive link]
The second floor showcase room isn’t an office for Rockstar. It’s a 100-foot-long, high-ceiling apartment that belongs to a Dutch photographer. It’s mostly one big room, with a kitchen in the living area and a long empty glass tank elevated to eye level and big enough to hold a school of fish or one big snake. Rockstar has added three big-screen high-definition TVs and a trio of Xbox 360s.
For the past two months, Rockstar’s PR team has invited journalists, game store employees, hip-hop heads and whoever else they think can create buzz, to come in and play the game they officially call Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis. Attendees play the game tournament-style; their names penciled in on paper posted on the mystery glass tank.
Rockstar’s Controversial Bully Game Not A Schoolyard GTA After All
August 11, 2006, for MTV News [Archive link]
A year after critics said it should be banned, Bully — the new game from Grand Theft Auto maker Rockstar Games — is finally in action.
And the biggest shock so far is that the game is not exactly what the Bully opponents said it would be. In fact, it even has an advocate in the bullying-awareness crowd.
“When I saw it, I was like, ‘I want to be the first one to play the game,’ “ said Izzy Kalman, a Staten Island school psychologist and founder of Bullies2Buddies, who saw the game in action at Rockstar’s offices last week. “I think it’s wonderful.”
Dubbed a “Columbine simulator” last year by attorney Jack Thompson and the subject of a picketing campaign by a group called the Peaceoholics, the game, as demonstrated, appears to be more of a “Napoleon Dynamite” or “Breakfast Club” simulator.
…
A trio of Rockstar reps recently demonstrated “Bully” for MTV News at the game maker’s downtown office. When the company demoed “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,” it opened with a video reel featuring clips from “Boyz N the Hood” and “Easy Rider.” This time, it was “Rushmore” and “Napoleon Dynamite” and seemingly every movie that features schoolboys wearing blazers with a patch on the chest.
Bully is the tale of squat, 15-year-old, buzz-cut-sporting Jimmy Hopkins and the rough-and-tumble halls of Bullworth Academy. By the time the Rockstar team turned off the movie reel and began running through Jimmy’s travails on a PS2, the message was clear: This concept has been shown outside of games plenty of times; we’re just joining in.
“Rockstar is often portrayed as doing a certain kind of game: guns or crime,” said Harry Allen, a Rockstar publicist. “What we do is find narratives and situations, stories, and we try to make a game out of it.”1
…
One mission has a nerd despondent over the theft of some character sheets for a game of a Dungeons & Dragons-style game called Grottos & Gremlins. Jimmy agrees to rescue them and goes on a hunt for the guilty bullies. It was at about this point in the demonstration that the Rockstar reps began to boast of the game’s nuanced relationship system that will cause members of the game’s four non-bully factions — the nerds, preppies, jocks or greasers — to provide aid if they are helped in previous missions.
The demo version of Jimmy had been good to the nerds already — too good for the demo, it turned out. During a scene that was supposed to show some dialogue between Jimmy and another bully, a nerd flew into the picture and tackled the bully. That wasn’t in the script. It was the game’s alliance system getting hyperactive. The Rockstar reps promised that the story-line scenes would be walled off from such interference by the time the game is finalized.
‘GTA: Vice City Stories’ Involves Smuggling Rings, Jet Ski Stunts — And Chocolate
September 20, 2006, for MTV News [Archive link]
…while other companies are still struggling with the basics of making a GTA-style open-world go-anywhere, do-anything kind of environment, the [Rockstar] Leeds [studio] is tinkering with advanced concerns. One is “clumping,” the tendency for every car in a game of this type to be the same make — and the same make of whatever car the player just jacked. It’s not something that happens all the time, but because of memory and processing idiosyncrasies, it’s something common enough that Leeds wants to rub it out. Another nit they want to pick? “Sometimes you carjack a Banshee [GTA sports car] and a 90-year-old lady gets out and you’re like, ‘Ah, that doesn’t really make much sense,’ “ Bennett said. Leeds is on that too.
‘Grand Theft Auto IV’ Developer Announces Release Date, Says Whether There Will Be Another ‘Hot Coffee’
Jan 23, 2008, for MTV News [Archive link]
GTA games haven’t missed their announced release dates before. When the delay was announced in August, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick told investors that “the reason it is being delayed is almost strictly technological problems — not problems, but challenges.” [Rockstar VP of product development Jeronimo] Barrera offered a little more detail to MTV News this week: “It’s really no surprise to anybody that the PS3 was definitely a contributing factor to that. Now, we’re neck and neck. That’s not an issue anymore. But back then that was something we were taking into account. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with the PS3 version. It’s awesome. They’re both identical.”
…
What about sex? For better or worse, the biggest surprise to many people about the most recent console installment in the series, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, was the unfinished interactive sex scenes left deep within the code of the game discs and accessible to hackers. That’s not coming back for the new game. “Are we going to have a ‘Hot Coffee’ situation?” Barrera asked aloud. “Absolutely not.” But the game will have romance. Unlike Rockstar’s recent schoolyard game, Bully, the main male character won’t be able to get involved with other guys , but straight relationships will continue. “Yeah, you can go on dates,” Barrera said. “Obviously it’s a mature title and there’s human relations. That’s a natural thing.”
‘Grand Theft Auto IV’ Details Unloaded In Lengthy Private Demo At Developer’s Headquarters
Jan 23, 2008, for MTV News [Archive link]
Other news about travel in GTA includes the breakthrough that cars that Niko steals now have GPS systems. A yellow route will be drawn on the player’s mini-map in the lower-left-hand corner of the screen to get them to a selected destination. Players that steal luxury cars will discover that the GPS in those vehicles can talk.
The police system has been changed. Previous GTA games always showed a “wanted” meter in the upper-right corner. This showed how much trouble the player was in with the law, based on a number of stars. The stars only went away if the player went into hiding or was taken down by the law. The new game doesn’t have a persistent “wanted” meter. Instead, crimes cause no change in the player’s notoriety unless they are witnessed by a nearby police officer.
Grand Theft Auto IV Hands-on: Less Like a Video Game Than Ever Before
March 12, 2008, for MTV News [Archive Link]
While we followed the rules of these missions, it became clear that Rockstar has tried to make GTA IV feel like less of a video game, a change that will likely excite fans and further horrify the series’ critics. Shooting a policeman, a criminal or a civilian will cause them to tumble with convincing physics. Shot people look hurt. Cars handle more realistically and more distinctly, depending on the type, making driving feel more true to life. The improved physics and animation make the game feel more real, the player’s actions more fraught with consequence. We stole a car, tried to evade police and fishtailed through an innocent crowd. Our car was damaged. The cops swarmed. And so while trying to drive up a hill, our vehicle simply stalled. The police won that one. When we stole a motorcycle in another mission, we were arrested immediately, without a shot being fired.
GTA IV has been designed with the intention to strip away a lot of its predecessors’ video-gameness. Extra guns and health packs don’t float a few inches above the ground, waiting to be walked through. They lie on flat surfaces, waiting to be picked up. A Rockstar rep told MTV News that the developers didn’t even want those found items to glow, as they do now, because that’s not realistic. But a concession was made so players could more easily identify what they could and should try to grab in this world.
…
Off its rails, the game can be cartoonish. We stood Niko at the foot of Liberty City’s Statue of Happiness and fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the statue, sending tourists fleeing and denting the statue not a bit. A tourist had dropped a jug of milk and a loaf of bread. A policeman, sensing cause for alarm, approached and dodged a few shots of the RPG right in his direction. He had a gut but was nimble, and he had a backup fleet of choppers and, across the waterway, armored vans and SWAT teams to back him up, an imbalanced cartoon dynamic of cops vs. robber that saw justice again prevail.
…
(On a more personal note to Rockstar: Our subways in the real New York City aren’t dingy and graffiti-covered anymore. And the building where this story was filed houses MTV, not Music Entertainment TV, aka Me TV. What exactly is “GTA IV” trying to imply?)
Grand Theft Auto IV Multiplayer Hands On: Experiencing the Mayhem with Rockstar
April 8, 2008, for MTV News [Archive link]
And how would he distinguish the GTA multiplayer mode from that of other games? “Not tacked on,” he said. “It fits seamlessly into the game — the variety and ultimately the freedom that players are going to enjoy for a very long time.”
This is Harry Allen, the “media assassin,” an extended member of the Public Enemy family who served as the iconic rap group’s publicist for a time.
As immortalized in the lyrics for 1988’s Don’t Believe The Hype:
Chuck D: I’m going to my media assassin // Harry Allen, I gotta ask him
Flavor Flav: Yo, Harry, you’re a writer, are we that type?
Harry Allen: Don’t believe the hype
