Rockstar’s Houser duo scale Guardian Media 100

Two of Rockstar Games’ co-founding group have climbed the Guardian Media 100; the annual list of influential people who shape UK entertainment and news.

Sam and Dan Houser this year featured at 27th in the list, meaning they are ranked higher than Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange, BBC political editor Nick Robinson and the Independent newspaper proprietor Alexander Lebedev.

This is only the second time the Houser brothers have featured in the Guardian’s Media 100 list, having last year debuted at 28th.

“With LA Noire, the brothers’ Rockstar Games has had the biggest and most influential video game release of the year,” read the Guardian’s report, which lauded the game for ushering in “the entirely new gaming concept of face acting”.

The Guardian piece added: “Rockstar raised the bar with its Grand Theft Auto series and Red Dead Redemption, defining a new era of sprawling open-world adventures. With LA Noire, inspired by Raymond Chandler and LA Confidential, it has done it again. The title was the first game to be honoured as an official selection at the Tribeca film festival. It even spawned its own book of short stories – that never happened to Jet Set Willy.”

In May the Houser brothers, along with key Rockstar management, signed a new long-term employment agreement with Take-Two Games.

Rockstar Games was founded in 1998.