Dan Houser, the Vice President of Creativity at Rockstar, is perhaps one of the most sought after interviewees in the gaming world. Along with his brother and President of Rockstar, Sam Houser, they've been entertaining millions upon millions of gamers the world over for years. What is great about Dan is not just his honesty and great insights into gaming, but his integrity; he's the first to explain that the company is propelled by hundreds of driven people, not a handful; and he constantly seeks to improve on quality and quantity.

IGN and The Guardian have both sat down and talked with the man himself this past week, in the run up to what's sure to be the biggest, baddest, boldest games of 2013: Grand Theft Auto V. Below is a few snippets of our favorite bits, but be sure to check out the entire articles for more.

IGN:

When describing GTA V:

"We're doing the biggest world we ever made. Putting the most things to do in it. A real focus on bank robberies and heists with a lot of planning to them. A real focus on multiplayer. Then the three changeable characters. That would be how I'd begin trying to describe it. Then I'd describe in a more lyrical sense, I suppose... Modern-day California in all its glory. Or southern California. We really wanted to get the kind of lunacy and underbelly of this place at the edge of the western world."

On GTA V's multiplayer:

"I believe this one will be the best we've delivered yet, the most comprehensive package and the best set of things you can do and ways you can organize and try to make it compelling… We think there's something very compelling about open world multiplayer. We believe this is the game with which we will finally convince other people of that, a large number of other people. We just need to get closer before we're quite ready to show it."

Why is GTA V not a next-gen title? Well...

"There'll be a much larger audience on PS3 than there will be on PS4. At a creative level, which is the most important for us, we could say everything we wanted to say and do everything we wanted to do on these machines. There's plenty of power in these machines."

On a 'mobile gaming future':

"I would still rather be entertained on my couch than on the bus."

Explaining the absense of San Andreas' RPG-style mechanics in GTA V:

"It's a really cool feature, and we just haven't really used it since. We'd love to use it in a future game. It works really well in a California-set game. It just looked like, if the three characters were going to be something that was worth having, then that was something it would be worth not having."

Lastly, on the huge map in GTA V:

This world -- the range of height and between north and south and east and west -- is huge, and it's a real strength. Doing other cities just didn't seem appealing. Doing small towns is very appealing. There's a bunch of small towns and villages and whatnot in there to discover and play around in. Doing other cities, though, felt like it was going to create problems we didn't need. It wasn't going to add to the experience. This map is going to be spectacular to people when they start exploring and playing around with it.

That is literarly just the tip of the iceberg in relation to information out of IGN's crazy-informative article on GTA V's most buring questions. Check out the whole article for much more.

The Guardian:

On the change from PS2-era Grand Theft Auto to GTA IV and GTA V:

"You know, with those first 3D games, we were trying to make something that had the aspirations to be like a movie. I don't want oversell this, but by GTA IV, we wanted to try to find something that could be better than movies in a way – more alive and more vibrant. It was time to move on and do our own thing."

When asked how a new game is started:

"For us, it starts with the characters. The story is always driven by the characters – it's always got to feel like someone you want to be propelled through the game world with. Then we'll find a cool, interesting and amusing cast to juxtapose them with, and make sure we've got a good range of types. If the process feels organic to us then we're heading in the right direction."

Dan also discusses Rockstar's last GTA set in Los Santos, and the infamous 'Hot Coffee' fiasco:

"It was draining and upsetting – a tough time in the company."

However, he adds that:

"We never felt that we were being attacked for the content, we were being attacked for the medium, which felt a little unfair. If all of this stuff had been put into a book or a movie, people wouldn't have blinked an eye. And there are far bigger issues to worry about in society than this."

He finishes discussing the amazing team Rockstar has produced:

"Our skill has been in creating that environment where hundreds of people can flourish. It is far better than my ability or otherwise to write, or Sam's to tune games – creating the environment and working together is what makes us proud. Every different person here has their own weaknesses, their own hang-ups but together we produce magic."

Also, The Guardian articles reminds me of something I think many people often don't realize; Grand Theft Auto IV was released 10 years after Rockstar Games was founded. There aren't many entertainment companies that could achieve the sort of quality, popularity and critical acclaim in 10 years that Rockstar did. That is truly something that must be commended.