GTA 6: the five Rockstar Games founders, and where they are now

Rockstar Games was founded in New York in December 1998 by Sam Houser, Dan Houser, Terry Donovan, Gary Foreman and Jamie King, as a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive. Five weeks out from the November 19, 2026 release of Grand Theft Auto VI, only one of the five still runs the studio: Sam Houser, its president.

Founder	Role at Rockstar	Exit	Since
Sam Houser	president	still there	fronted the GTA 6 announcement
Dan Houser	head writer, VP of creativity	March 11, 2020	Absurd Ventures
Terry Donovan	managing director	confirmed January 12, 2007	no public role on record
Gary Foreman	chief technology officer	before 2008	4mm Games, 2008 to 2012
Jamie King	production on GTA, Max Payne and Bully	before 2008	4mm Games, 2008 to 2012

Three of them came out of the BMG group. Foreman and King were at BMG Interactive and Donovan at Arista Records, a BMG Entertainment label, when they moved to New York to work for Take-Two.

Terry Donovan, the label’s front man

A former DJ, Donovan started the Rockstar Loft club night with Sam Houser and John Davis in 1999, pitched as a cheaper, less intimidating night out than its rivals, according to Fanbyte. On September 19, 2001, he was the one explaining why GTA III slipped three weeks after the 9/11 attacks: “we have come across certain small contextual references that we were no longer comfortable with.” The GTA 6 vs GTA 3 comparison covers what changed.

On January 12, 2007, Take-Two told GameSpot that Donovan had left. He went on leave in September 2006 and decided in December not to return. Capcom’s European boss Gary Dale arrived as Rockstar COO in the same weeks.

Gary Foreman and Jamie King, from Rockstar to 4mm Games

The pair set up 4mm Games in New York in 2008. King told MCV on October 20, 2010: “I’d been at Rockstar for 11 years.” When CTO Gary Foreman quit, “he came and found me,” King said, and Foreman’s version was simply “I quit, I’ve gotta do something!”

Their only game, Def Jam Rapstar, shipped October 5, 2010 in North America and November 26 in Europe, published by Konami and Autumn Games. PlayStation.Blog introduced King that month as 4mm’s president and chief creative officer. On March 31, 2012, EMI sued over 54 unlicensed tracks it valued at $150,000 each, and 4mm was dissolved that year.

The Housers, from 1998 to GTA 6

Dan Houser, credited as a writer on twelve Grand Theft Auto games, left Rockstar on March 11, 2020 and went on to launch Absurd Ventures. His brother stayed. On November 8, 2023, Sam Houser wrote on the Newswire that Rockstar “was founded on the idea that video games could come to be as essential to culture as any other form of entertainment.” The GTA 6 reveal release of December 4 that year quoted him as “Founder of Rockstar Games.”

The game itself is built across Rockstar’s ten studios, with Rockstar North in the lead.