
[VentureBeat]How GTA pioneer Dan Houser’s Absurd Ventures will make gr… 2025-01-22
How GTA pioneer Dan Houser’s Absurd Ventures will make great worlds with strong storytelling
Smilegate is investing in Dan Houser's Absurd Ventures.
Image Credit: Absurd Ventures
South Korean game development and publishing company Smilegate recently made a strategic investment and became a partner in Absurd Ventures, a game studio founded by Rockstar Games cofounder Dan Houser.
Houser spent more than 20 years at Rockstar games and drove the creative direction of the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption franchises, which have collectively sold more than 550 million units worldwide. (Theoretically, that’s about $33 billion worth of games). Houser left Rockstar Games in 2020.
Through this agreement, Smilegate will have the opportunity to partner on Absurd Ventures’ new intellectual property, which has been in the works since Houser started the studio in 2021. I am looking forward to seeing the creative output of this combination, as Houser was part of a talented team at Rockstar that rose to the pinnacle of the game industry. This is a test as to whether he can do more of the same, this time with a South Korean juggernaut behind him instead of Rockstar and Take-Two Interactive.
It’s a big opportunity for Smilegate — the maker of games such as Crossfire and Lost Ark — to team up with Houser, who creatively oversaw globally successful IPs that are cultural cornerstones and rooted in immersive storytelling. I did an interview with Smilegate and Absurd Ventures to find out why they did this deal and to find some clues about what they’re working on. Houser is notoriously shy when it comes to press, but I did get to interview Harold Kim, vice president of business development at Smilegate, and Greg Borrud, head of games at Absurd Ventures.
Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.
Greg Borrud is head of games at Absurd Ventures.
GamesBeat: What can you tell us about this partnership?
Greg Borrud: This is a good combination of both Smilegate, which is very passionate about where we’re going in games, and Absurd, likewise very passionate about where we’re going in games. We’re both exploring publishing and developing and all these new markets and new opportunities. This investment is a signal of our mutual respect for each other and our desire to help work together to see what we can do to bring great games to players. It’s a minority investment, so it’s just that first step of getting to know each other, but so far it’s been a great partnership. We’re very excited about the future.
GamesBeat: Harold, what was interesting to you about Absurd?
Harold Kim: Smilegate is a unique company in the publishing industry. We come from South Korea. We were doing well in a lot of countries, but not particularly well in the U.S. or other western territories. Our bread and butter is live service games. We’ve been doing that from the inception of the company. We want to become a global company, a real player in the industry. When we look at some of the trends in the industry, one is triple-A. We’re not talking about money figures. We’re talking about–if you look back at the 2000s, one of the key features of how we defined triple-A was great narrative storytelling.
When our chairman, Kwon Hyuk-bin, had a chance to meet with Dan Houser over dinner, what came out of that meeting was that they had a shared vision. That vision is creating IP that’s memorable. Fun, but also memorable. IP that can be passed along through generations. Absurd has tremendous respect and experience in creating that narrative storytelling. Smilegate doesn’t have that experience, but Smilegate has live service operations experience. We see great potential in the relationships, endless possibilities. It was a no-brainer for us to make the call and get into this relationship.
GamesBeat: It’s a big commitment, too. You don’t know when something is going to drop. You don’t know how long you need to support the company. Reputation is everything here. It feels like you’re ready for whatever might happen, without knowing for certain when the first game is going to arrive.
Kim: Smilegate is unique in the sense that it’s a 100% private company. It took us five years to ship Crossfire, eight years to ship Lost Ark. Quality is important. We’re not bound by a public company’s obligations to shareholders. The only thing we care about is our relationships and quality. Any time we do deals, it’s all based on long-term relationships. We hope to create that kind of relationship with Absurd.
Harold Kim is vice president of business development at Smilegate.
GamesBeat: Is that philosophy a bit of a rarity in the game industry?
Borrud: You can see why we were interested in this conversation. Dan and I have talked about this quite a bit in our conversations with Kwon at Smilegate, this shared passion and interest in making big games that will have a meaningful impact for years to come. We’re very excited that Smilegate’s interested in exploring narrative-driven games. That’s what Absurd is built on, storytelling and new immersive worlds, new player experiences. There’s a shared interest there, which is exciting. We don’t want to take forever to get to market, but we also don’t want to rush. It’s finding the right balance. That was great to hear for us.
On the flip side, we’re very interested in live services. We’re interested in what Smilegate is great at. We’re thinking about how we can thread the needle on both. And then also understanding the Asian market as well. It felt like a perfect relationship to get started. We’re very complementary to each other. That’s been borne out in a number of conversations we’ve been having for quite a while.
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