There's a fascinating piece on Develop today.
Writer Owain Bennallack speculates whether Rockstar founders and Sam and Dan Houser might someday be knighted.
While the Housers are pariahs to some for the GTA series' edgy content, their cultural and economic impact is undeniable. It certainly wouldn't be the first time that the passing of the years transformed British bad boys into royal honorees.
Here's Bennallack:
They’ve fought the law, Jack Thompson, and the British tabloids. With their comrades at Edinburgh’s Rockstar North they’ve upped the ante with each successive GTA, creating landmark games with ever more wit, élan, action and emotion...
...the establishment eventually co-opts any superstar bad boys who haven’t died in their own vomit, overdosed on narcotics, outlived their legends or crashed a light aircraft into some Caribbean outcrop.
I mean the inevitable coming of Sir Sam Houser, or Dan Houser OBE..
Grand Theft Auto IV caps a body of work that is culturally and commercially significant enough to warrant official recognition... The playful nature of GTA IV is also why today’s rote moral outrage will eventually be no impediment to the Housers getting their high society dues. It’s hard to appreciate now that rock music once shook society, but it did, and decades later Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney picked up their knighthoods regardless...
Comments
yes , if nothing more so than they can force that which cannot be named to address them as "sir"
As long as kooks like MP Vaz still are alive, there is NO CHANCE IN HELL. Could you imagine the utter shitstorm the British media would have if R* people got knighted?
Maybe in 20 years...
yes but thats what would make their knighthood all the sweeter lol
Vaz has another podium at the moment, what with government employees leaving Top Secret information on trains. So, he's probably not going to touch video games until there is another chance of a Media Slot to promote himself.
I think the sweetest piece of fruit from the basket would be watching Sam and Dan get knighted befor Vaz does.
To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful. Edward R. Murrow
The British press has never been able to whip up a lot of hysteria over the subject. It's usually only used as filler when they can't find anything to blame on immigrants.
Although, I don't think they deserve a knighthood. Great though GTA is, the cultural impact isn't that great. People will forget it when the next great game comes along. Tomb Raider had considerably more influence outside of the games industry.
Indeed, if you consider that many of the people who have recieved knighthoods for contributionsa to entertainment were often maligned and attacked by 'morality watchdogs' when they first appeared, it does actually make sense
It's inevitable, but don't expect it to happen for another 15 years. Just look how long it took the Codies founders to get theirs! And how about the Stamper brothers - surely they're worth a nod, too?
-- teh moominz --
I would give anything, ANYTHING, to see the look on JT's face when he read's this article :D
ROFL I think you could connect a turbine to his ears and the steam would provide enough power to play GTA IV on a PS3 for a week ;)
All I have to say to you is, damn you for the soda through my nose
Yeah Jack, where's your invite to come be Knighted?
Oh that's right, they don't Knight failed almost disbarred attorneys.
Sucks for you I guess...
I can easily see it happening some years down the line. I cite The Rolling Stones by way of example, they raised plenty of hell and were vilified by the press in their early years but it hasn't stopped them from getting KBEs. R* look saintly in comparison, hell they haven't even broken the law! (At least I'm unaware of any police raids on Sam and Dan's houses.) ;)
[EDIT] The real barrier to recognition is whether R* is deemed to have had a big enough impact, one big franchise may not cut it... although the sales figures might make up for that particular shortcoming.
Gift.
Well if they can give Mugabe a knighthood and take it away from him as well, I don't see why the Houser Brothers can't get one either.
No. Leaving aside any contribution their games have made to entertainment, the horrible way that they treat their employees should forever exclude them from recieving such an honour.
I'm inclined to agree, but it didn't stop Alan Sugar from getting a knighthood.
It would kind of be like being attacked by an enraged Garden Gnome.
So now JT can add the Queen of England to the list of conspirators against him.
And then he would truly enter the Realm of LaRouche....
No, they shouldn't.
I don't think they have made as much a contribution as, say the brothers that set up Codemasters.