GTA 6: How Yorkshire’s gaming sector could benefit from presence of Rockstar's little-known Leeds base

According to analytics firm Sensor Tower, the game may have already brought in over $750m in pre-orders ahead of its November 19 release, selling over seven million copies.

In September of 2013, when GTA 5 was released, the game earned over $800m in sales in 24 hours, going on to rake in over $1bn in just three days.

While millions of column inches and hours of air-time are set to be spent on GTA in the coming weeks and months, the Leeds office of GTA developer Rockstar remains rarely mentioned.

But according to experts in Yorkshire’s gaming industry, the impact for the region could be huge, leading to swathes of new jobs and even new businesses springing up as a result of Rockstar’s presence, and GTA’s success.

“Rockstar, in Leeds, has been part of the industry for more than 20 years now. Their DNA is in the region,” says Jamie Sefton, managing director of games industry business network Games Republic.

“Having a major studio like that does have an effect on the local economy, and each individual person that is working at that studio will be creating millions and millions of pounds of returns to the UK Government.

“We also see local people getting these jobs at Rockstar that end up working on these massive titles, and because Rockstar is such a big name, we get people coming to the region to work here that are world class.

“Then when people have left Rockstar, they've created other studios, so there's also this flowering of things going on because of the quality of the people that Rockstar get.”

While parent company, Rockstar Games, is based in New York, Rockstar Leeds has played a leading role in a number of smaller titles in the GTA series, including Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, and Liberty City Stories.

A major example of the company’s staff going on to have a wider impact in the region is the founding of Red Kite Games. Launched in 2012 by former Rockstar developer Simon Iwaniszak, the company has worked on major titles including Hogwarts Legacy and Fall Guys.

But smaller, newer developers also hope the release of GTA 6 could have a huge positive impact for them.

“I think what's really interesting with GTA being released is you’re suddenly going to get investors going ‘Oh, games are making money,’” says Sitara Shefta, co-founder of newly launched Leeds studio, Pretty Cool Games.

“I think it's going to drive a bunch of investors back to the games industry that have avoided it for the last couple of years. I think this is going to open up a brand new funding landscape for the games industry.”

According to Yasmina Fadel, co-director of York-based games studio Maximalist Ltd, the release of GTA 6 could also persuade investors and bigger studios to prioritise quality over quantity.

“Something like GTA can convince people that have the power to invest more in games,” she says.

“But games also take a long time to make. Games like GTA take a really long time to make. So I think an example of that paying off is very important as well, in a world where everybody wants things to move faster and faster and faster.”

But while the release of the new GTA may mean more money and attention for the games industry, it also brings about major pressures, with many studios moving their release dates to avoid falling close to the launch of GTA 6.

The release has also been shifted multiple times, leaving developers with uncertainty around when best to plan their own launches.

“There are developers that have maybe been working on a game for two, three years now, and with Rockstar being quite elusive with their timelines, it can have a pretty big impact on people that have scheduled their releases,” says Ms Fadel.

“GTA is big, but you're not only competing with GTA; you’re competing for people's free time, and that means people spending time with their families, watching movies, reading. So the competition is big already, and you now have this release that some people have been waiting over a decade for.”

With the gaming industry already fighting a lads club reputation, the controversies around the release of GTA can also pose a challenge for other studios, according to Ms Shefta.

“I think the themes within the game do create controversy, and sometimes that gives people a negative perception of what it means to play games,” she says.

“The games are controversial, so there's going to be some potentially negative conversations surrounding that as well, but I think people sometimes forget that the game's got an age rating, and not every game is designed for kids.”

While the violence and adult themes of GTA may attract controversy, it has done little to dent anticipation for the series’s latest installment.

According to Nielsen IQ data, UK PS5 sales jumped 33 per cent following a Netflix special preview of the game, which in itself attracted more than 31 million views in four days.

But for those in Yorkshire’s gaming sector, the release also brings about something else very special, reacquaintance with old friends.

“I will be very excited to start seeing Rockstar developers at events again,” says Ms Fadel, “We haven't seen them in a long time, because they’ve been so busy. We miss them, and we're excited to see them out and about again.”