"It was mind-blowing": GTA San Andreas dev shares his experience of the game's midnight launch and DVD distribution

GTA San Andreas is one of Rockstar Games' greatest titles from a technological standpoint. The title was released in 2004 for the PlayStation 2, featuring several gameplay mechanics that were well ahead of their time. In fact, many of them are yet to be replicated in the series. Former Technical Director at Rockstar North, Obbe Vermeij, recently talked about the title's midnight launch on his official X account.

"For big games, stores would open at Midnight before release day so that pre-orders could be picked up. I only later found out, the publisher has to pay the stores to make these late openings happen."

He further recalled visiting the biggest store near the Rockstar North offices, and described the experience of seeing excited fans at the midnight launch as "mind-blowing."

"I went to the biggest store near the R*North offices, which was HMV on Princess Street, Edinburgh. Even though it was a drizzly night, the line meandered all through the store and spilled out onto the street. It was mind-blowing to see all those people so excited, going home to play the game all through the night."

Obbe Vermeij has played an instrumental role in developing the series' 3D Universe trilogy, i.e., Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City, and San Andreas. He was even a part of Grand Theft Auto 4's development but left Rockstar North in 2009.

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GTA San Andreas developer talks about the title's launch period on X

Apart from GTA San Andreas' midnight launch, Obbe Vermeij talked about the production and distribution of the game's DVDs, stating that it took six weeks.

"It took 6 weeks for the DVDs to be produced, boxed and distributed. Patches over the internet were not yet a thing. For us, all of the stress had happened at the cut-off point, 6 weeks prior. No big issues had come up."

He also talked about online patches and digital distribution not really being a thing back then, and how many other developers were on holiday and were thinking about the studio's next project — Grand Theft Auto 4.

Obbe Vermeij has been quite active on X off late, interacting with the Grand Theft Auto community about the development of 3D Universe titles. While this post talks about the launch of GTA San Andreas, he has also mentioned GTA 3's dynamic weather effects, fitting the game on a PlayStation 2 DVD, and more in his previous posts.

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Also check: 5 things that can only be done in GTA San Andreas