Officially headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Absurd Ventures’ mission is to “build narrative worlds, create characters, and write stories for a diverse range of genres without limiting ourselves to a specific medium“. Dan Houser therefore wishes to tackle the cinema liveanimation, video games and other interactive content, books, graphic novels and scripted podcasts, excuse me.
A not-so-absurd project
The name Absurd Ventures in Games had already been spotted in mid-2021 in the United States and the United Kingdom without an official press release explaining the project. Meanwhile, Dan Houser joined the advisory board of Revolving Games, a studio devoted to blockchain – with relative success, it must be said, given their anecdotal production. With a total budget of $25 million, the studio had “create AAA-quality games that turn heads at major events like Gamescom and E3“Without hearing anything since.
By founding Absurd Ventures, Dan Houser returns to his first love: writing for television and cinema, a great youth project that he abandoned in the 1990s to found Rockstar. Since then, he has greatly improved on major projects such as Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2 to name a few.
Dan Houser’s last months at Rockstar were marred by a controversy surrounding the crunch practiced in his studios, following an interview with Vulture where he confided in conducting “100 hour weeks“. Journalist Jason Schreier then conducted a lengthy investigation into working conditions at Rockstar, triggering awareness and gradual improvement within the studio.