The 'all the good devs left Rockstar' take is so tired

Seen this one floating around again lately. "GTA 6 is gonna suck because all the good devs left." Usually they're talking about Leslie Benzies, sometimes Dan Houser. And yeah, it's annoying.

Leslie's post-Rockstar project was Everywhere. Remember that? Exactly. It was a mess. The guy was important, sure, but he wasn't the whole company. Dan Houser wrote some great stuff, but he's not the only writer. Rockstar's always been a massive team effort.

The core people who actually built the worlds we love are still there:

Aaron Garbut — head of art, been there since GTA III
Rob Nelson — he was running Rockstar North during RDR2's development, and that game turned out alright
Sam Houser — still the president, still the creative vision guy

I think a lot of gamers don't get how these games are made. It's not one auteur in a room. RDR2 had something like 1,200 voice actors. The credits are longer than most movies. If making a GTA was easy, someone else would've done it by now. But nobody has, because the scale is insane.

It's like doubting a scientist when you don't even know what an atom is. You can be skeptical, but at least understand the basics before you write off a whole studio.

What's the most underrated part of Rockstar's process that you think people overlook?

Source: r/GTA6 · Curated content.