This week, the eyes of the global creative industries are focused on Shoreditch in London as the European edition of South by Southwest takes over the city. SXSW London has quickly established itself as a premier convergence of technology, music, screen, and interactive culture. On Thursday 4 June at 1:35pm, I will be taking the stage at Protein Studios for a panel session that strikes at the very heart of my own history in this industry: The GTA Effect.
Alongside co-panelists Sam Crane, the filmmaker behind the brilliant, award-winning Grand Theft Hamlet, and Dr Esther Wright, Senior Lecturer in Digital History at Cardiff University and a leading academic authority on Rockstar Games, we will be unpacking what the Grand Theft Auto franchise means for global culture, branding, and the entertainment industry as we head toward the launch of GTA6.
The Untold Origin Story
If you’ve heard about my background, my perspective on this panel is a highly personal one. Way before I founded the Scottish Games Network, I started my career at DMA Design, working as a writer on the very first Grand Theft Auto, Body Harvest, Silicon Valley and Tanktics.
As we prepare to discuss the massive cultural footprint of the franchise, I have been reflecting on the fact that the actual origin story of the original Grand Theft Auto has never been told properly or in depth – despite at least half a dozen production companies attempting to take on the challenge and produce feature-length documentaries. The reasons why you’ve seen NONE of these histories released are fascinating (and chilling) stories in themselves.
(The less said about the BBC’s 2015 docu-drama The Game Changers, the better…)
The industry has a habit of ‘sanitising’ its own history, reducing the chaotic, brilliant, and often weird development of the first game into a neat, corporate myth. The reality was far more complex, far more human, and deeply rooted in a very specific time and place in Scotland. That untold story is not just a piece of nostalgia; it is a vital part of our national digital heritage that needs to be documented with the depth and accuracy it deserves.
(and maybe that’s something I can change…?)
A Convergence of Perspectives
What makes The GTA Effect session so compelling is the sheer diversity of the panel. We are bringing together three entirely different lenses to look at a single cultural phenomenon:
- The Developer’s Lens: My own experience from the ground floor (ok, basement) of DMA Design, witnessing how a ‘highly experimental’ project in Dundee transformed into a global phenomenon.
- The Creative Lens: Sam Crane, who captured the world’s attention by staging a full production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet inside the virtual space of GTA Online during pandemic lockdown, proved that these worlds are now active platforms for human connection, emergent behaviour and More Than Games.
- The Academic Lens: Dr Esther Wright, whose extensive research into the historical authenticity of Rockstar’s titles like Red Dead Redemption provides the critical, theoretical framework to understand how these digital spaces shape our collective memory of history.
We also need to thank Dan Salkey, the co-founder of Small World, who pulled the panel together.
This is the More Than Games philosophy in its purest form – demonstrating that a videogame is no longer a simple consumer product, but a massive cultural sandbox that influences fashion, music, literature, and academic study across the world.
Shaping the Future Narrative
With the launch of the next entry in the GTA franchise shaping up to be the biggest cultural drop of the decade, understanding the history and heritage of this incredible IP has never been more urgent. But we cannot fully understand where the franchise is going if we remain indifferent to how it began.
I’m looking forward to a lively, challenging, and deeply honest conversation about The GTA Effect on Thursday. My goal is to ensure that as we dissect the global impact of this series, the value of GTA outside its enormous economic impact is central to the discussion. The game is so valuable and the numbers so big (billions of dollars, players, hours played, records broken, etc.) that the cultural, social and creative impact can sometimes be lost in the mix.
If you are attending SXSW London this week, please head over to Protein Studios. Let’ u’s discuss how we can collectively value and protect the games we love (and our shared digital history) as we continue to build games into the future of the global creative economy.
Session Details:
- Title: The GTA Effect
- Date: Thursday 4 June 2026
- Time: 1:35pm – 2:05pm
- Location: Protein Studios (Stage 2), Shoreditch, London
- Track: Creator Economy / Panel Discussion
Learn more about the session: The GTA Effect at SXSW London 2026
Explore the festival schedule: SXSW London 2026