// BBC UK NEWS — CRONACA
Scotland created Grand Theft Auto - is its video game industry still thriving?
Grand Theft Auto VI is scheduled to launch on 19 November
As the world waits for the release of Grand Theft Auto VI, one of the most anticipated entertainment launches in history, its origins can still be traced back to a group of young developers working in Dundee almost 30 years ago.
The original GTA was built by Scottish studio DMA Design, laying the foundations for what would become one of the most successful video games franchises ever made.
"It was entirely the work of a Scottish team, all novices, we had no games design degrees at that point," says Brian Baglow, who worked as a writer on the game.
"The only people who believed in it were DMA Design. The publisher wanted to kill it," he says.
Over the last three decades, the game has sold hundreds of millions of copies while DMA Design became Rockstar North, moving to Edinburgh, and employing more than 1,000 people.
But while Rockstar is the superstar of Scotland's gaming industry, the story extends far beyond GTA.
DMA Design was officially renamed Rockstar North in 2002
Chris van der Kuyl, who co-founded VIS Entertainment in the early 1990s, says Scotland's games industry is almost unrecognisable from the one he entered 30-odd years ago.
"When we started out, people didn't think about Scotland at all," he says.