Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
The studio shown here is DMA Design, based in Dundee, Scotland, and the BBC actually visited them back in 1996, a full year before the finished game hit shelves.
DMA Design was already a big name in gaming before this project even started, mostly thanks to Lemmings, which had sold around 20 million copies worldwide by the early 90s. The game you see being played on that monitor started life under the working title Race'n'Chase, and it was originally supposed to launch back in June 1996. It ended up slipping all the way to November 1997 instead, which is the exact game we now know as the first Grand Theft Auto.
The publisher, BMG Interactive, hired a well known PR man named Max Clifford to help sell it, and his whole strategy was to play up how violent and controversial the game looked to the press. That approach worked. The game became a huge talking point in the UK before it even got big in America, and it helped kick off one of the biggest franchises in gaming history.
DMA Design itself would not become Rockstar North until years later, after Take Two Interactive bought the studio from Infogrames in 1999 for a symbolic one pound plus the studio's outstanding debt. So the footage here really is the true origin point, just under a different name than most people expect.
Let me know in the comments if you remember playing the original top down GTA. Subscribe to Game Forest GF for retro gaming content every single day.
#gta #grandtheftauto #dmadesign #rockstargames #retrogaming #classicgaming #90scommercial #bbcfootage #90sgaming #oldschoolgaming #vintagegaming #gaminghistory #90snostalgia #gtahistory #videogamehistory #gaming #youtubeshorts #gta5 #gtavi
The studio shown here is DMA Design, based in Dundee, Scotland, and the BBC actually visited them back in 1996, a full year before the finished game hit shelves.
DMA Design was already a big name in gaming before this project even started, mostly thanks to Lemmings, which had sold around 20 million copies worldwide by the early 90s. The game you see being played on that monitor started life under the working title Race'n'Chase, and it was originally supposed to launch back in June 1996. It ended up slipping all the way to November 1997 instead, which is the exact game we now know as the first Grand Theft Auto.
The publisher, BMG Interactive, hired a well known PR man named Max Clifford to help sell it, and his whole strategy was to play up how violent and controversial the game looked to the press. That approach worked. The game became a huge talking point in the UK before it even got big in America, and it helped kick off one of the biggest franchises in gaming history.
DMA Design itself would not become Rockstar North until years later, after Take Two Interactive bought the studio from Infogrames in 1999 for a symbolic one pound plus the studio's outstanding debt. So the footage here really is the true origin point, just under a different name than most people expect.
Let me know in the comments if you remember playing the original top down GTA. Subscribe to Game Forest GF for retro gaming content every single day.
#gta #grandtheftauto #dmadesign #rockstargames #retrogaming #classicgaming #90scommercial #bbcfootage #90sgaming #oldschoolgaming #vintagegaming #gaminghistory #90snostalgia #gtahistory #videogamehistory #gaming #youtubeshorts #gta5 #gtavi
