Grand Theft Auto Creators Locked Up To Long-Term Contract With Take-Two [The Houser Brothers & Leslie Benzies Of GTA Fame Pen New Contract With Take-Two, Terms & Length Undisclosed]

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Great news for Rockstar fans. In their latest earnings call, Take-Two Interactive chairman Strauss Zelnick reported that the company had renewed the employment agreement with the two Houser brothers – Sam and Dan -  as well as Leslie Benzies. Video game fans will note that those three Scottish developers are considered the creative “brains” behind studio Rockstar North, and their hit Grand Theft Auto games.

Such employee contracts to retain the most high-level employees in video game studios aren’t uncommon, and are almost mandatory in many video game studio acquisitions. Imagine if (this is a purely hypothetical example) Microsoft purchased Bungie, and then Bungie developer and co-founder Jason Jones left the company to start his own company? Many of this large corporations see the creative talent (rightly so) as apart of the package deal when they buy a video game studio, hence the employee contracts.

Under the Houser brothers & Benzies, the Grand Theft Auto series has become a cultural icon in America and around the world. It’s, unquestionably, Take-Two’s most prized video game franchise, as the name recognition alone will sell millions of copies. It doesn’t hurt that each game has been progressively better than the last, too.

I have heard speculation on message boards that Activision was trying to court the Houser brothers away from Rockstar & Take-Two. I don’t know how accurate that was, or if it was just message board chatter, but if true, it’s a great move for Take-Two to lock up them to a deal.

The terms and length of the deal are undisclosed, but Zelnick said that the deal was on “substantially similar economic terms”. Giving us our only clue on the length of the deal, Zelnick said that Take-Two was going to work with Rockstar for “many years to come”.

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