The man behind Absurd Ventures is Dan Houser, and he’s been a critical figure in the success of the studio that previously launched as DMA Design.

Houser was a co-founder of Rockstar Games and later held creative director and lead writer positions on Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, and the Bully franchise, so he’s a figure who can’t be overlooked (another such person, Leslie Benzies, also founded a new studio and is said to work on something revolutionary). We used to hear about the crunch he and his writing team had to go through to get Red Dead Redemption 2 written…

Houser has since left Rockstar and Take-Two to set up a new studio, Absurd Ventures, a media company that will create new IP across all platforms and formats. So we could call Houser’s new job a transmedia company, as they would not only be working on games but could even venture into live-action films and animated movies because of their format. The press release confirms it: “Absurd Ventures is building narrative worlds, creating characters, and writing stories for a diverse variety of genres, without regard to medium, to be produced for live-action and animation; video games and other interactive content; books, graphic novels, and scripted podcasts.”

“We are building Absurd Ventures to create new universes and to tell great stories, wherever and however we can,” added Dan Houser, but we don’t know yet when we can expect anything from them. This company is independent of Take-Two, so they could be working as an external partner as a supplier on anything, as they don’t want to be exclusively involved in games. It is the idea that Bungie started under PlayStation Studios, which Sony has already said they will rely on for their transmedia expansion.

We wish Absurd Ventures the best of luck, as the founder knows what makes a good game, as Grand Theft Auto is still a franchise that sounds good.

Source: Gematsu