GTA V, and the Grand Theft Auto series in general, are so popular that even team members from "rival" studios will openly admit to being fans of the franchise and having played all the games (it makes sense, but still...).
Two staff members from Volition (the developers behind Saints Row IV) recently took to Reddit to conduct an "Ask Me Anything" (AMA) session about the upcoming release of Saints Row IV — 20 August by the way.
Scott Phillips, design director for Saints Row IV had the following to say when asked about the Grand Theft Auto franchise:
I've played every GTA (on the consoles) since GTA3. They do some amazing things and I can't wait for GTA 5. My favorite, for reference, is still Vice City.
However, Saints Row and Saints Row IV specifically are very different games than GTA and serve a very different need/niche for gamers. I don't think we need to live in a world where only one open world game exists and I think if you saw anything from E3 this year it was that open world games are the future.
I personally think you'd have to be crazy to make open world games and claim you haven't played GTA... I'm of the opinion that if you are going to do something and do it right, you'd better learn how everyone else who came before you did it and then try to do it better and improve on things.
Good to see he gave an honest answer which makes sense — how could you make open world games without having played the best!?
In case you missed it, Saints Row IV will be released on August 20, with Grand Theft Auto V following on September 17.
