Those damn cable networks that cover games only in terms of violence. Those big ‘consumer' magazines that never review games. They think we don't think. They think we don't read. They think we need to get a life. Well, we have one, and, yeah, it's rich beyond videogames. But it's also made richer because of videogames. That's why, after more than 15 years of covering games, I had to write All Your Base Are Belong to Us, How Fifty Years of Videogames Conquered Pop Culture.

So when I locked myself in my lair for most of the past three years to write, there was one thing I wanted to prove. In All Your Base, I wanted to show how full videogames have made our lives. And I wanted to do that by writing about the many game makers whose passion and knowledge about games goes beyond what you see on the screen when you play.

All of them exude great passion for their work. You can see it in the 89-year-old eyes of Ralph Baer, the maker of the Magnavox Odyssey. Baer dreamed of pretty much all the bells and whistles in games today — back in the 1970s. You can hear it when Ken Levine leans forward and gets gunned up about the pop and literary culture that influenced BioShock, and soon, BioShock Infinite. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. Dark, literary stuff.

It was my guess that I could find same enthusiasm in Sam Houser, the notoriously press-averse Rockstar games co-founder — if I could ever get past the doors. No one had gotten a really long, incisive interview with Sam, ever. He and his brother Dan are kind of like the J.D. Salinger's of videogames. They really don't need to court the blogs, magazines or TV talk shows. Rockstar's offerings can sell without the constant help of the media industrial complex because there's just so much inspired content in their games.

Ten months before All Your Base was due at Crown, I reached out to Rockstar via email. I heard nothing. Eight emails and two months later, I still heard nothing much. My stomach was in knots. Then, an ex-girlfriend said she had a friend inside. It turned out that she knew a person who had merely done business with Rockstar. While he sent an email, he didn't want to stick his neck out beyond that. Crap! Another dead end! I thought about waiting for Sam at the Rockstar offices entrance. But that thought was brief. I'm no stalker.

I decided to approach Sam and Dan directly. I sent My Life Among The Serial Killers, a book I co-wrote with a brilliant psychiatrist, to both brothers. I said I truly enjoyed the Grand Theft Auto games and that no history would come close to being complete without the Rockstar story. Dan Houser, the estimable head writer of most of Rockstars' games, took the book and letter to their marketing department.

Soon, I had two meetings with this really pleasant, thoughtful woman from Rockstar who got games and understood what I was trying to do. Probably just like you, we both believe great games can be considered popular art, and we talked geek talk about the dialog in GTA series, how surprisingly deep and often funny that writing could be. Like, in Grand Theft Auto IV, I'd have to pull over while driving because the talk radio shows made me laugh so uncontrollably. Good times.

She soon said that Sam indeed wanted to do the interview. I was thrilled. But Rockstar was in crunch time for Red Dead Redemption. Yet the interview was on! And then it was off! Then, it was on! And off. And on. And off, all due to deadlines.

No one around me believed it was going to happen.

People kept saying, let it go. They're stringing you along. Having worked at Sony Online Entertainment during the launch of EverQuest, I knew they weren't jerking me around. That didn't mean I didn't want to hurl each time the interview was postponed.

March, 2010 was the date the manuscript was due at the publisher. That wasn't going to happen. I pleaded with my editor for more time and got the extension. But as April came along, my editor's generally gracious nature began to turn to worry. The book's release date had already been postponed. And then the Rockstar interview was postponed again. I almost began to believe it wouldn't happen. My editor began to tell me to let it go. But I couldn't; in fact, I couldn't sleep at night. I was so close. I kept getting up at 3 a.m. and adding more to pages of questions I had.

Shortly after Red Dead Redemption was released, I got a call asking if I could get to the office in 20 minutes. I said, "But I'm way on the other side of town." Rockstar said, "Get ready. We're sending a car for you in ten minutes." I threw an iPod Touch and my questions into my Heart of Darkness backpack and was out the door.

Twenty minutes later, I sat in a conference room with Rockstar memorabilia around me. I wasn't nervous, well, not too nervous. But I was ready. Sam came in, limping a little from a spill he'd taken while riding his bike. He sported a long, Red Dead Redemption-style beard. The first thing he did was apologize for the long process of getting into Rockstar. He meant it. I could see it in his eyes.

Then Houser said, "Isn't this an amazing time for games? Red Dead Redemption and Super Mario Galaxy 2 are being released at the same time." Sam actually is a Nintendo fan, having worked on a slyly humorous Nintendo 64 game called, "Space Station Silicon Valley."

He sat down on a couch, and I could visibly see that he swallowed hard, kind of a gulp. He was getting ready to talk like he hadn't ever before.

Sam was completely affable, and we discussed everything Rockstar. He talked about how he was torn about moving to New York from London. He talked about the early days of Take-Two and about making ports of middling offerings like Bass Hunter to fund games he really liked. He said that Dan's first writing gig was on a British version of the trivia game, You Don't Know Jack.

He became more serious and talked about 9/11, about the horrors of watching the Twin Towers come down, about changing GTA III because of the tenor of the times, all about Hot Coffee and about dealing with the Feds. He talked about some very dark days, which I detail in the book. Everything was on the table.

And he's no a fan of the many executive level bloodsuckers in the world of games. Houser said, "I've been working in this industry for quite a long time. I think it's getting itself into sticky territory when it thinks only sequels and franchises and brands are what people (care) about. These companies are run by these corporate types while the great, creative things (in games) have only really come from guys going, ‘Well, we're gonna make this because that's what we believe in. So that's what we're going to make.' It doesn't come from people going, ‘Well, this is what our feedback told us, and this is how we've assessed its viability, so this is what you have to make.'

Among the 200 people I spoke with for the book, Sam Houser is the most outwardly passionate game maker I met. Yet he has that same cynical, New York edge that I have, the one that warns, Yeh, everything probably can go wrong, and it's all right to be paranoid about it – as long as you have a glimmer of hope. Like me, and maybe you, too, Houser felt like an outsider in the world. He still does. It was something I hadn't contemplated much before; I had thought that if you had made it big, that black sheep-ness would magically disappear. It was sheer prejudice on my part. But Sam uses that outsider-ness to Rockstar's benefit — to motivate and drive his people to make better games.

Hours and hours went by. It was like this Vulcan mind meld. We talked about punk rock, blue-eyed soul, books, traveling, being on the road, and, mostly, games. I spoke with Sam twice more for two hours with follow up questions. Some people have said, "Dude, you've drunk the Rockstar Kool-Aid." Others have said, "Watch out. They're going to turn on you." I'm not a fanboy; I ask tough questions and write with a critical eye. But I am a videogame fan, just like you. And one thing about Rockstar; they're never going to turn on their fans.

If you're a fan or a games journalist, I hope you get to meet Sam and the other game makers at Rockstar somewhere down the line. For now, you've got what I've written in All Your Base Are Belong to Us. I really hope you'll check out the book to read those intense Rockstar chapters (and about the ups and downs of all the genius game changers). In the meantime, be loud and proud, gamers. To paraphrase National Book Award winner Patti Smith at her punk rock best, At heart, you're a video gamer. And you have no guilt.

Harold Goldberg is the author of All Your Base Are Belong to Us, How Fifty Years of Videogames Conquered Pop Culture. He will read from the book at The Strand Bookstore, 828 Broadway in Manhattan, on April 7th at 7 p.m.

Illustration of Rockstar's Sam Houser by Gizmodo Illustrator Sam Spratt. Become a fan of his Facebook Artist's Page and follow Sam on Twitter

The makers of Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption and the upcoming L.A. Noire haven't hopped on the "transmedia" bandwagon yet, meaning they haven't tapped their best known franchises for movies, television shows or comic books. Why not?

Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser tells the Hollywood Reporter, bluntly, that "Virtually all movies made from games are awful, while many games made from movies are also pretty horrible."

"If you feel the property has something about it that is universal or could work in another medium, and it is not simply about making easy money, then that is something worthwhile," Houser says. "Too often, however, the aim appears to be to cash-in on the success of a particular game, book, pop singer, website, etc., and that usually produces mediocre results."

The game developer's L.A. Noire will make a special appearance at the upcoming Tribeca Film Festival, but don't assume that's a sign they want to shift from games to film. Houser says that the company has "explored" movie deals, but hasn't bit... yet.

"If we were to attempt to make a movie, we would like to make it ourselves," Houser says, "or at least work in collaboration with the best talent, so at least if it is bad, we can know we failed on our own terms."

Rockstar Games' Dan Houser on 'L.A. Noire's' Selection by the Tribeca Film Festival [THR]

There are many wonderful things that a Hollywood filmmaker could borrow from Grand Theft Auto, including better police chases and user-controlled soundtracks, but the director of this weekend's Jake Gyllenhaal movie Source Code is snatching something else.

Here's filmmaker Duncan Jones talking to the Columbus Dispatch:

There's this infamous video game, Grand Theft Auto, where, if you're driving a car at high speed and jump out of the car and go rolling down the street, the camera stays with you. [Note from Kotaku: presumably similar to what happens in the GTA IV clip above.] It doesn't cut. I wanted to do that but actually do it with my actor.

So he leaps off the train, hits the ground and tumbles into a bloody heap at the end of it — with no cuts. It's a combination of live-action stunt work and special effects.

I hadn't seen that before, and I wanted to be the first.

We haven't seen Source Code, so we can't confirm the movie's GTA-ness. If you see the movie this weekend, let us know. And let us know if Jake re-spawns at a hospital, without his guns, a half-day later.

Filmmaker shaped by classic sci-fi [Columbus Dispatch]

Grand Theft Auto, the controversial and violent video game series that has sold in excess of 100 million units, began its life as a simple design document in 1995, back when the game was still known as Race'n'Chase.

Reading that design doc isn't nearly as much fun as playing a Grand Theft Auto game, but to see the simple concepts that became one of the biggest video games ever, the humble beginnings of Liberty City, San Andreas and Vice City, may be of historical importance... or at least interesting.

Mike Dailly, programmer at DMA Design where GTA was born, uploaded the 12 page Race'n'Chase design doc to Flickr today, offering a look at the original concept behind the game. Here's how he described it, based on meetings with other DMA Design staffers:

The aim of Race 'n' Chase is to produce a fun, addictive and fast multiplayer car racing and crashing game which uses a novel graphics method.

Dailly writes a low-key description of the series' most memorable character, its major cities:

There will [be] 3 cities with a different graphic style for each city (e.g. New York, Venice, Miami). There will be many different missions to be played in each city. This is so that players an get to know the routes through a particular city.

Here's how he describes the gameplay of Race'n'Chase.

Players will be able to drive cars and possibly other vehicles such as boats, helicopters or lorries. Cars can be stolen, raced, collided, crash (ramraiding?) and have to be navigated about a large map. It will also be possible for players to get out of their car and steal another one. This will mean controlling a vulnerable pedestrian for a short time. Trying to steal a car may result in an alarm being set off which will, of course, attract the police.

Dailly outlines the core team behind the game, only a dozen developers, which was planned to ship on PC (DOS and Windows), PlayStation, Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64 (when it was still known as the Ultra 64). The game's code and sound were designed to fit within 1MB of storage each and DMA gave themselves an aggressive development schedule, originally planning to have the game wrapped up in the summer of 1996.

Grand Theft Auto would eventually ship on the PC and PlayStation in the fall of 1997.

Read the whole thing at Flickr at the link below.

GTA [Flickr - thanks, John!]

Seems ridiculous, what with Rockstar's epic crime series still a benchmark for open-world gameplay, but did you know that the very first GTA came close to never being released?

It had nothing to do with politics, or censorship, either. Instead, it was regular old-fashioned development troubles that nearly robbed the world of one of its most cherished and influential franchises.

"It never really felt like it was going anywhere. It was almost canned", says Gary Penn, who worked at original developers DMA Design on the game. "The publisher, BMG Interactive, wanted to can it, as it didn't seem to be going anywhere."

"There are probably two key things it fell down on. Two critical things. One of them is stability, which is a really boring one but it crashed all the fucking time. So even if you did get something in the game, you couldn't really test it."

The other? The cars.

"Now the other thing that was a problem was the handling — the car handling was appalling...the core of playing was fundamentally broken."

Luckily a few tweaks were made, such as making the police car AI psychopathic, and the game was good to go. Millions of copies and nearly fifteen years later and it's still going!

The Replay Interviews: Gary Penn [Gamasutra]

A new study conducted by Continental Tyres has found that players of driving video games are better at passing their drivers test than non-gaming drivers. Unfortunately they suck at everything else.

You know that feeling you get while you're playing a racing game like Burnout Paradise or Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit when you blaze through a track at top speed, weaving in and out of traffic without a scratch? That's just a feeling. It's not real.

I shouldn't have to say that, but the Continental Tyres study suggests I might need to. The study polled 1,000 gamers and 1,000 non-gamers between the ages of 17 and 39 about their driving habits. Researchers discovered that video game driving enthusiasts are some of the most over-confident bastards on the road, without the skills to back up the cockiness.

Video game drivers are more likely to crash. They're more likely to hit things while parking, or accidentally clip other cars. They tend to drive the wrong way down a one-way street more often, and regularly run red lights.

It's not that video game drivers don't possess basic driving skills. The study found that gaming drivers tend to pass their driver's test after an average of two tries, while non-gamers take an average of three.

No, their downfall is their hubris. Continental Tyres safety expert Tim Bailey explains.

"This is an interesting piece of research. It seems that while gamers develop useful skills and are more confident, they need to apply some balance with a sensible assessment of risk. Playing computer driving games means good concentration levels and improved reaction times, however, they can take more risks than non-gaming drivers, possibly due to the lack of real consequences in games."

No real consequence? Those achievements don't earn themselves, sir!

It gets worse the more time driving game players spend behind the virtual wheel as well, with those that play more than 8 hours a day three times more likely to get into an accident than those that play for less than an hour on average.

One in five driving game players feels that the game time makes them a better driver. One look at this chart proves them wrong.

Tim Bailey and the Continental Tyres crew are planning to work with the Institute of Advanced Driving in the UK to independently access gamer's driving skills, hopefully on an extremely closed course with armed guards surrounding the perimeter.

Video Gamers More Dangerous Drivers Than Non-Gamers [Jalopnik]

Saints Row is the video game series many of us think of, with good reason, as the premiere Grand Theft Auto imitator. In theory, we won't think of the next Saints Row that way.

"All I can tell you is that [pause] it's all good," Danny Bilson the head of "core" games at Saints Row publisher THQ told Kotaku today in New York when we pressed him for details on Saints Row 3.

But that wasn't really all he could tell us. We wanted to know if Saints Row should still be thought of as a wild Grand Theft Auto, so he gave us a little more about what the series is and will be.

"In my mind its incredibly outrageous and will have less and less relationship with Grand Theft Auto."

Details? Not yet, not from Bilson. "A secret weapon isn't a secret weapon if I blow the secret," he said. THQ has publicly promised Saints Row 3 for the fall, but we haven't seen it yet.

(Screenshot from Saints Row 2)

We are all over PC gaming this week , but what do we know about PC gaming? Each day, one Kotaku editor will reveal their PC gaming knowledge and share some memories. Yesterday you read about Crecente's experiences, and now?

Now you can read about mine.

Are you a PC gamer?

For several Texas summers between the ages of 11 to 15, I sure was. But as a kid, I didn't have a PC at home. We had a typewriter! (Oddly, we didn't have a microwave, either.) If I wanted to write something, that mean I could try to henpeck out a letter or get a pen. If I wanted to game, well, I had an array of video game consoles. The computer, a 1981 IBM, was at my dad's office. My parents never really made the connection between computers and kids. In fact, I didn't have my own computer until 1996 — right before I left for college. So, sadly, I don't have a strong PC gaming background. Blame my childhood! That doesn't mean I totally missed out on computer games as a wee lad. I didn't grow up in a cave.

What was your first PC game?

Like most children of the 1980s, my first computer game was Oregon Trail. But, the first computer game I played outside of school was probably 1987's Leisure Suit Larry. A friend's older brother had a copy, and a bunch of us loaded it up to, and I quote, "see things you'll never see in a Nintendo game". Besides fuschia graphics and conversations in bars, I actually don't remember much about the game itself, but rather, what really stuck out was how Larry was controlled by the keyboard. It was a revelation! Game characters manipulated by something other than a control pad or a joystick.

Did consoles ever get in the way of your PC gaming?

My consoles always got in the way of my PC gaming. When the Nintendo Entertainment System came out, I had one. When the Sega Genesis hit, I had one. When the Turbo Grafx-16 went on sale, I was there. Besides those consoles, my parents had Pong and an Odyssey. Yes, I was that kid. But there was never any impetus to get a computer until I went to college. And while in college, dormmates' computers held wonders like Grand Theft Auto and Quake. Good times. I felt what others had know for years: the computer can more than hold its own as a gaming machine. Late to the party, but hey, at least I arrived.

Best PC gaming memory?

My best friend growing up had Sim City, Civilization and later TIE Fighter, among other games. Often, I'd go over to his house and play for hours and hours. There isn't a specific memory per se, but those sunny afternoons, drinking Dr Pepper and taking turns playing seem to be from a different era. Kids today have their own PCs and play with each other online — which certainly is fine. But there's something to be said about being in the same room and learning from another player's mistakes.

Worst PC gaming memory?

Right before I left for college, I picked a Mac over a ThinkPad laptop. Since I, you know, GREW UP WITH AN ELECTRIC IBM TYPEWRITER, I honestly did not know you could not play PC games on a Mac. I was utterly crushed upon being told that by a sales clerk. I was even more crushed when I saw the number of titles in the games for Mac aisle. I felt like my Mac was nothing more than a fancy typewriter.

What PC-based game series should they bring back?

Hrm, Jazz Jackrabbit? Epic Games is known for their shooters Gears of War and Unreal Tournament. Why not release another Jazz Jackrabbit? And release it for the PC!

Aki Toyosaki is a voice actress and a pop singer, perhaps best known for schoolgirl rocker anime K-On! She's a gamer, too, and she's got discerning taste.

In Japan, Western games are not big sellers. People play Japanese games, which is totally fine! It is Japan. And while Western games might not be as popular as homegrown titles in The Land of the Rising Sun, there is definitely a following for titles developed abroad.

"I'm often told that I look like someone who plays Animal Crossing," Toyosaki told Japanese magazine SPA. On the contrary! Don't peg her as a rabid Animal Crossing player, because she says she likes a different sort of gaming experience.

"I love Grand Theft Auto and fighting games! I'm the type who totally gets into something." Exactly! Like drawing her room without freaking out the entire world.

豊崎愛生さん「グランド・セフト・オートとかの格闘ゲームが大好き！」 [世界一かわいいよ！] [Pic]

Answering reader mail, Rockstar Games today said it will be bringing Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City and San Andreas to Mac gamers "later this year."

"Look for the long-awaited release of the classic Grand Theft Auto Trilogy (Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas) for Mac - most likely later this year," the studio said in its "Asked and Answered" feature. "We'll have much more info and a proper announcement soon."

Wonder if it's at all related to the curious re-rating - at least in Australia - for a "modified" and "multiplatform" version of Vice City.

Technically, any Mac gamer with a copy of Windows installed has been able to play these games on his machine for some time. A native version is nicer to have. And its nice to see Rockstar climbing aboard in its support of the platform.

No pricing or other details.

Asked & Answered: Red Dead Downloadable Content, Soundtrack, Classic GTAs on Mac, The Banhammer, and Much More [Rockstar Games on Facebook]