David Kushner - Jacked - The unauthorized behind-the-scenes story of Grand Theft Auto

Jacked

The unauthorized

behind-the-scenes story

of Grand Theft Auto

DAVID KUSHNER

Dedication Contents Title Page Dedication Author’s Note Prologue - Players vs. Haters Chapter 1 - The Outlaws Chapter 2 - The Warriors Chapter 3 - Race ‘n’ Chase Chapter 4 - Gouranga! Chapter 5 - Eating the Hamster Chapter 6 - Liberty City Chapter 7 - Gang Warfare Chapter 8 - Steal This Game Chapter 9 - Rockstar Loft Chapter 10 - The Worst Place in America Chapter 11 - State of Emergency Chapter 12 - Crime Pays Chapter 13 - Vice City Chapter 14 - Rampages Chapter 15 - Cashmere Games Chapter 16 - Grand Death Auto Chapter 17 - Boyz in the Hood Chapter 18 - Sex in San Andreas Chapter 19 - Unlock the Darkness Chapter 20 - Hot Coffee Chapter 21 - Adults Only Chapter 22 - Busted! Chapter 23 - Bullies Chapter 24 - Flowers for Jack Chapter 25 - New York City Epilogue - Outlaws to the End Acknowledgments Notes Index Copyright About the Publisher

To Andy Kushner

Contents

Title Page Jacked The unauthorized behind-the-scenes story of Grand Theft Auto DAVID KUSHNER

Dedication

Author’s Note

Prologue - Players vs. Haters

Chapter 1 - The Outlaws

Chapter 2 - The Warriors

Chapter 3 - Race ‘n’ Chase

Chapter 4 - Gouranga!

Chapter 5 - Eating the Hamster

Chapter 6 - Liberty City

Chapter 7 - Gang Warfare

Chapter 8 - Steal This Game

Chapter 9 - Rockstar Loft

Chapter 10 - The Worst Place in America

Chapter 11 - State of Emergency

Chapter 12 - Crime Pays

Chapter 13 - Vice City

Chapter 14 - Rampages

Chapter 15 - Cashmere Games

Chapter 16 - Grand Death Auto

Chapter 17 - Boyz in the Hood

Chapter 18 - Sex in San Andreas

Chapter 19 - Unlock the Darkness

Chapter 20 - Hot Coffee

Chapter 21 - Adults Only

Chapter 22 - Busted!

Chapter 23 - Bullies

Chapter 24 - Flowers for Jack

Chapter 25 - New York City

Epilogue - Outlaws to the End

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index

Copyright

About the Publisher

Author’s Note Contents Title Page Jacked The unauthorized behind-the-scenes story of Grand Theft Auto DAVID KUSHNER Dedication Author’s Note Prologue - Players vs. Haters Chapter 1 - The Outlaws Chapter 2 - The Warriors Chapter 3 - Race ‘n’ Chase Chapter 4 - Gouranga! Chapter 5 - Eating the Hamster Chapter 6 - Liberty City Chapter 7 - Gang Warfare Chapter 8 - Steal This Game Chapter 9 - Rockstar Loft Chapter 10 - The Worst Place in America Chapter 11 - State of Emergency Chapter 12 - Crime Pays Chapter 13 - Vice City Chapter 14 - Rampages Chapter 15 - Cashmere Games Chapter 16 - Grand Death Auto Chapter 17 - Boyz in the Hood Chapter 18 - Sex in San Andreas Chapter 19 - Unlock the Darkness Chapter 20 - Hot Coffee Chapter 21 - Adults Only Chapter 22 - Busted! Chapter 23 - Bullies Chapter 24 - Flowers for Jack Chapter 25 - New York City Epilogue - Outlaws to the End Acknowledgments Notes Index Copyright About the Publisher

This book is based on more than ten years of research. I first played Grand Theft Auto in 1997 and began reporting on its creators, Rockstar Games, two years later. As the franchise boomed, I chronicled game culture and industry for publications that included Rolling Stone , Wired , the New York Times , GamePro , and Electronic Gaming Monthly , as well as in my first book, Masters of Doom.

My reporting took me across the country and around the world— from the offices of Rockstar in New York to the streets of Dundee, Scotland, where GTA began. There were long days and endless nights at game conventions and start-ups. I spent hundreds (thousands?) of hours playing games. I played Pong with Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari, and, for one particularly awesome afternoon in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, rolled the dice with Gary Gygax, the cocreator of Dungeons & Dragons.

As the industry grew, I saw the controversies rise over violent video games—especially over GTA— and covered both sides of the disputes . I sat with a crying mother in a tiny town in Tennessee, where her sons had just murdered one person and maimed another—and triggered a $259 million lawsuit against Rockstar and others for allegedly inspiring the crime with GTA. I went to Coral Gables, Florida, to visit GTA ’s chief opponent, Jack Thompson, at his home.

I spoke with leaders from the Entertainment Software Association in Washington, D.C., and went behind closed doors at the clandestine Entertainment Software Ratings Board in New York to see how games are rated. In Iowa City, I sat in a small stuffy room hooked up to electrodes while I played Grand Theft Auto —and university researchers studied my brain. Yeah, it was strange.

Though all of these adventures don’t appear explicitly in this book, they inform it. This is a work of narrative nonfiction, a recreation of the story of GTA. The scenes and the dialogue are drawn from hundreds of my own interviews and firsthand observations, as well as thousands of articles, court documents, and TV and radio reports. The Rolling Stone reporter who appears in the book is me.

Over the years since I first visited Rockstar Games, I’ve interviewed many people at the company including each of the cofounders. Though the current helm at Rockstar declined to participate in this book, I was able to draw freely from my previous interviews with them and speak extensively with those who have left. A few sources didn’t want to be identified, due to personal or professional concerns. Others were reluctant to talk, then eager, or eager, then reluctant. In the end, the vast majority went on the record. A funny thing happens when you write a book like this. People start to realize and appreciate that they are part of a larger story, not only their own, but everyone’s.

Prologue Players vs. Haters Contents Title Page Jacked The unauthorized behind-the-scenes story of Grand Theft Auto DAVID KUSHNER Dedication Author’s Note Prologue - Players vs. Haters Chapter 1 - The Outlaws Chapter 2 - The Warriors Chapter 3 - Race ‘n’ Chase Chapter 4 - Gouranga! Chapter 5 - Eating the Hamster Chapter 6 - Liberty City Chapter 7 - Gang Warfare Chapter 8 - Steal This Game Chapter 9 - Rockstar Loft Chapter 10 - The Worst Place in America Chapter 11 - State of Emergency Chapter 12 - Crime Pays Chapter 13 - Vice City Chapter 14 - Rampages Chapter 15 - Cashmere Games Chapter 16 - Grand Death Auto Chapter 17 - Boyz in the Hood Chapter 18 - Sex in San Andreas Chapter 19 - Unlock the Darkness Chapter 20 - Hot Coffee Chapter 21 - Adults Only Chapter 22 - Busted! Chapter 23 - Bullies Chapter 24 - Flowers for Jack Chapter 25 - New York City Epilogue - Outlaws to the End Acknowledgments Notes Index Copyright About the Publisher

How far would you go for something you believe in?

One winter day, Sam Houser was going farther than he’d ever imagined or feared—all the way to Capitol Hill to answer to the Feds. The thirty-four-year-old had achieved the universal dream: rising from nowhere to make his fantasies real. Yet now reality was threatening to take it all away.

A scrappy Brit running an empire in New York City, Sam cultivated the image of the player he had become. Scruffy hair. Shaggy beard. Eyes hidden behind aviator shades. Gripping the wheel of his jet-black Porsche. Buildings towering. Taxis honking. Flipping stations on the radio. Pedal to the metal as the world blurred like a scene from the video game that made him so rich and so wanted: Grand Theft Auto.