Eldorado.gg<\/span><\/a>, former Rockstar developer Joe Rubino has claimed that user-generated content (UGC) tools will define the future of major franchises like Grand Theft Auto 6.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n![\"Joe](\"https:\/\/www.eldorado.gg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Joe-Rubino.webp\")
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Joe Rubino<\/em><\/p>\nRubino argued that allowing players to build and monetize narratives within open-world games creates a win-win for studios and fans. ‘I’d start developing those UGC tools. I want players to create their own universes within the universe that I give them,’ Rubino revealed, adding: ‘Why wouldn’t you let that trickle down and let your player base become kind of your tribe that is actually monetizing and they get to reap those rewards?’<\/span><\/p>\nRubino also noted that GTA 6 likely represents one of the final blockbusters built using traditional, mega-scale development pipelines before AI transforms workflows. Whilst describing Rockstar as an industry ‘unicorn’ with exceptional resources, Rubino warned that legacy publishers cannot rely on multi-year development cadences.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n‘GTA 6 will probably be one of those last games at that scale,’ Rubino observed, noting: ‘The industry is struggling because we’re using legacy, older development techniques.’<\/span><\/p>\nReflecting on studio culture during his time at Rockstar, Rubino pushed back against negative perceptions surrounding high-pressure milestones on GTA 5. He recalled that leadership work ethic inspired the team rather than forced management mandates.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n‘Nobody at any of the studios ever asked me to stay late or come in early, ever,’ Rubino explained, adding: ‘You’d see Sam Houser walking around the hallway at the hours I was there and I would go, “Wow, that guy, even after all his success… this guy is relentless in his ability to make something incredible.”‘<\/span><\/p>\n![\"Joe](\"https:\/\/www.eldorado.gg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Joe-Rubino-motion-capture.webp\")
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Joe Rubino with motion capture equipment. Credit: CanvasRebel<\/em><\/p>\nKey takeaways<\/span><\/h2>\n\n- Empowering players with safeguarded UGC tools to create and monetize custom content within major IPs represents the next major paradigm shift for franchises like GTA.<\/span><\/li>\n
- Rockstar Games’ upcoming Grand Theft Auto 6 represents one of the final blockbuster titles built using traditional, human-only mega-scale pipelines.<\/span><\/li>\n
- Generative AI tooling will permanently reduce traditional studio team sizes whilst enabling solo creators and smaller teams to produce AAA-quality content.<\/span><\/li>\n
- Advanced development pipelines will allow studios to shorten multi-year development cycles and potentially lower retail game pricing below standard $79 rates.<\/span><\/li>\n
- High-intensity studio milestones at Rockstar Games were driven by leadership passion and developer dedication rather than forced management mandates.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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Q:<\/span> While many creatives call for less AI, Cinepipe AI automates cinematic pipelines. Why embrace automation against this trend?<\/b><\/p>\nJR:<\/b><\/span> Yeah, I think I’ll give you a story. There’s a camera called the Red camera. It was one of the first digital cameras to sort of replace 35-millimeter cameras. And in the mid-2000s, Peter Jackson shot a prototype film, a World War II film, and then he dropped it off at my school. I went to Columbia, and everybody was fearful of the professors. There were a lot of working professionals in my school. It’s a very well-known school for cinematography and now game development as well. But back then it was storytelling, film, cinematography, and I was the first one to jump on it because I’m aware of history. It usually rhymes: the horse and carriage; the bow and arrow to the gun; the automated screwdriver from the regular screw that’s manual. There are disruptive technologies that will continuously come. They come every generation, and instead of being disrupted by it, you have to use it as another tool in your tool chest.<\/span><\/p>\nThis is not going away. And so, there are ethical ways to work with artificial intelligence and a right way to do it. And we’re leaning into that. So we are taking assets that are created by real people, real artists create these things, and we’re fast-tracking from the moment it’s made to the output. Whether that be an animation or a trailer or a cinematic or creating a 3D asset from a 2D asset, we’re giving the ability for a user to unleash their potential and increase their productivity. So, that’s why we’re approaching it. We know that this is here to stay, and we’re trying to provide another outlet to say, “Hey, there is actually a safe, ethical way to approach this.”<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Q:<\/span> Given your gaming background, what makes you confident Cinepipe AI will succeed rather than fail?<\/b><\/p>\nJR:<\/b><\/span> I’m listening to the market. We’re going to where the users are. And the users right now, a lot of them are unemployed. There’s a term, “stag unemployment,” that’s been going around. And a lot of people don’t realize that the disruption in the industry is actually a permanent disruption. It’s a permanent reduction. The industry will change and adapt, but now it’s time for solo creators to thrive.<\/span><\/p>\nAnd so, what do you do in your spare time if you’re looking for a job? You have to train, you build, you have to learn. Cinepipe AI unleashes the ability for a single user to almost have every department at their fingertips to be able to prototype and build their own product. They can either do previews, or they can actually make games out of it, or they can make animated shows out of it. But it is also for other creators.<\/span><\/p>\nIf you’re a marketing agency and you’re working with a new brand that’s a new perfume, you can build a product perfume channel around that. If you’re a podcaster and you want to do a really cool animated intro for your new podcast because you’re a content creator or you’re a gamer, okay, you can now do that.<\/span><\/p>\nHere’s the thing that I tell: How many Stephen Spielbergs are out there that we never knew existed because they didn’t have their uncle in Hollywood, or they didn’t have the weight to afford college or training, or they didn’t have the ability to buy a camera or editing software? How many of those Stephen Spielbergs who had the best creative ideas never got an opportunity to be discovered? This is going to give accessibility. A tool and a platform like Cinepipe AI \u2026 All of those people that are out there that really believe that they want to do something and they’re scared to take that first step \u2013 this unleashes and unlocks their ability to do it. Here’s a key: if you have an idea and you can dream it, you can go make it. And so I always say to people, if you give Stephen Spielberg an iPhone today, he probably could still make Jaws or Saving Private Ryan because it’s the creator behind it, not necessarily the tool, right? So if you take that concept and apply it here, maybe the next person that is Steven Spielberg is going to use Cinepipe AI to make the next greatest game or the next greatest TV animation or the next greatest marketing agency or product. This gives them that ability.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Q:<\/span> If automation slashes AAA production costs and time, should gamers expect cheaper games?<\/b><\/p>\nJR:<\/b><\/span> Yeah, actually I think that’s a good correlation. Think of this: We’re about to have a flood of content. I think what you’re seeing in the industry is a forecast. Every year. And some of them get lost in the noise. But we’re going to have a threshold of quality \u2013 that bar that’s going to be closer to AAA but at the double-A or single-A budget. Why? Because now we’ll have tooling that fast-tracks your ability to create things that look good. Now the story behind it, the gameplay, what pulls you and drives you as a player, that is the thing that really matters. So if you take away some of those, I guess, potholes or landmines of development that we’re caught in right now…<\/span><\/p>\nThe industry is struggling because we’re using legacy, older development techniques. And we’re not letting them go as an industry. And that’s why you’re having mass layoffs. I mean, it’s not the only reason. It\u2019s one reason. You have this entrenchment mentality to say, “Hey, I was a developer. Look, I worked on GTA, I worked on some of these crazy games,” and there are people that say like me who go, “Hey, I know the formula to make the thing.” Maybe your formula has aged. I think we’re at this crossroads where we have to choose a direction as an industry as a whole.<\/span><\/p>\nNow, there’ll always be a Christopher Nolan that wants to shoot on 70-millimeter IMAX, and that’s amazing. And I think there is a place for that completely human-made, old-school direction. GTA 6 will probably be one of those last games at that scale. I mean, I don’t know, they’re potentially using a technology that we don’t know about. But there’s a time and place for that.<\/span><\/p>\nBut for the rest of the solo indie creators, you’re going to have a flood of content that’s going to look really good and that probably should be priced accordingly. If it takes one year to make a game that used to take four years, you don’t have to price it at $79.<\/span><\/p>\nAnd also, the entire model of how we pay for games is probably going to shift as well. Now, we’re entering into a realm where you’re going to have UGC creators. What does that mean? You know: I love Fortnite, I love Rainbow 6, I love GTA. I am going to have the tools that the creators have because the developers are going to give all of the players some of those creation tools, and they’re going to publish their DLCs and their content and monetize and share their version of what they believe a level could be, or a small trailer or a big trailer. And now you’re going to have pockets nested with content living in the broader content universe of those games. Those people are going to thrive in there, and they’re going to become their own creators inside that larger creative ecosystem.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Q:<\/span> Considering GTA Roleplay, do you think Rockstar will enable players to build and monetize custom narratives?<\/b><\/p>\nJR:<\/b><\/span> Yeah, I do. I think if Rockstar is probably thinking about how to safeguard things, there’s a reason why Warner Brothers doesn’t let ChatGPT sort of imagine Batman. There are safeguards, right? You’re going to have similar things. I just use that analogy because you could apply it to whatever the new characters in the GTA universe. You don’t want to destroy the artistic vision of what they’ve created. So if they can develop safeguarded tools that you can play within the lines of acceptability, then I think Rockstar probably could consider that. I think that’s probably not going to be the first thing that they go after because they’ve already created an amazing world and there’s plenty of content that their players could probably get lost in for a long time.<\/span><\/p>\nEventually, and this isn’t just a Rockstar thing, this is anybody who’s building a large ecosystem that is based on IP. Whether that is a game or something else like a movie, like a Marvel universe <\/span>\u2013 <\/span>I think the same can be said. If you build the safeguards where you can have players become an echo chamber and broadcast your content from their point of view, why wouldn’t you let that trickle down and let your player base become kind of your tribe that is actually monetizing, and they get to reap those rewards?<\/span><\/p>\nThe thing is, as developers, what we want to do is we want to keep you within our universe, and we want to listen to what you like. That is, we both win from that. The players win, and the developers win. So, I think we’re stepping into a new paradigm where we’re going to have more of a two-way street of some of that connectivity and communication. So, I hope studios… I mean, I’m thinking tremendously about that.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"nopixel](\"https:\/\/www.eldorado.gg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/nopixel-V-scaled.webp\")
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Rockstar is partnering with nopixel to introduce the official GTA 5 roleplay experience<\/em><\/p>\nQ:<\/span> Should storefronts like Steam disclose when AI is used during development, and what types need transparency?<\/b><\/p>\nJR:<\/b><\/span> Yeah, I think they should. I think the word “AI” is kind of a trigger word. So, what is AI, and what type of AI? It matters. So, I think we’re going to start moving away from AI as a blanket term for everything, and we’re going to start calling it by what it really is, what its function is, and what that tool may be trying to provide.<\/span><\/p>\nWhen we get to that point, you’re going to probably have the visibility to say or to see, “This was a tool that helped fast-track animation.” Because I want to know: What are you really doing with that? Did you hit a button and generate the entire thing off a prompt? Okay, that’s probably. I’m not going to be interested in that as a player. I want real creative ideas to flourish, and I want those ideas to be, kind of, accentuated by guided AI that’s assisting, and not driving. It’s the way we’re going to have to define these things.<\/span><\/p>\nI think in Steam, just saying “AI” was like, “this had an AI thing,” it’s too blanket and too broad. We have to get into more of the nitty-gritty of what is really being utilized.<\/span><\/p>\nBy the way, everybody is building R&D teams, everybody is thinking about this. It’s kind of the opposite of what is in the public domain of what’s really going on behind the scenes. We’ve been using AI for 20, 30 years, okay? How it’s changed \u2013 <\/span>the sort of the definition of what it is and the emotional kind of trigger of what AI means for some players and also some people that work in the industry \u2013 that has created this very toxic kind of vocabulary around it and connotation, and I think that’s going to slowly shift.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Q:<\/span> How do you respond to concerns about player backlash against AI tools like Cinepipe AI?<\/b><\/p>\nJR:<\/b><\/span> So, in Cinepipe AI, we have four applications that communicate with each other. We’re the first omnidirectional platform that moves in each direction. So, if you’re a character artist and you have a really cool 2D illustration of a hero that you’ve made and it’s yours, but you’re not an animator, and you don’t have the ability to animate that, and you don’t really know 3ds Max or Maya or MotionBuilder \u2013 you don’t have a mocap suit at your house \u2013 how do you want to promote this character and find out if it’s the right thing? You can ingest that, and we will train around your character in CinepipeAI. And now CinepipeAI locally knows what your character is, and now it knows what your character is from all three angles, 360 degrees, and now you can move it into the animation agent.<\/span><\/p>\nBasically, if you think of what Cinepipe is, it’s just the entire 40-person production development team that you would have in an agency or an animation studio or a game development studio broken down into agents. So each department has its own agent, and that agent is assisting you with what you need to do today or what you need to do over the course of what you’re trying to create.<\/span><\/p>\nSo I pull in my hero asset, which is… I have a single illustration from multiple angles. Cinepipe AI, the animation agent, animates that however you want based on other references. You go, “I like the way this character moves. That is an inspiration for me.” Okay. And then it’ll go, “Okay, you like that, but here’s how we’re gonna frame it, right?” And so now you have a character that moves in 2D. And then you could say to yourself, “Wait, I want to bring that into my 3D scene.” And then you could send that over to CinepipeAI Director, which is a direct tool that communicates with any 3D engine (Unity, Unreal Engine, Blender), and now you have a 3D asset from a sketch that you made. So it’s almost like saying: Fast-track your vision and fail cheaply. That’s really the key here.<\/span><\/p>\nWhat’s happening in the industry right now? It’s costing a lot of money to fail because you have to “find the fun.” That’s what game development\u2026 all these game developers, they always go, “We’re finding the fun. We’re finding the fun. Hey, wait for us. The game is delayed six months. We have to find the fun.” It’s an excuse. You can’t do that anymore. What this allows collapses your ability to fail really quickly.<\/span><\/p>\nAnd don’t think of that as a bad thing. That’s a really good thing. You want to fail in all these directions because then you know not to go in that direction. You go, “My character does not look good in that way. My character looks really good this way.” And now I can try all of these new things, all these things work, and all of these things don’t. And these things would have cost a long time because time is money. It took forever to figure that out, right? So now you can move on to the next character or the next environment, right? And now you can keep going and keep going and grooving. That’s what it does for people.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Q:<\/span> So the primary goal is helping creators build an MVP and fail fast?<\/b><\/p>\nJR:<\/b><\/span> Right. And the publishers are losing patience because they’re saying, “Hey, I have funded your studio, a 100-person team. You have $80 million, and we’re in year two or three, and we don’t have a game yet. Where’s the game?” And that’s why you have studios like Amazon that closed most of their studios because they were going on and on and on. And you have Ubisoft falling into this trap. Microsoft is falling into that trap. And with all of these issues, we just can’t develop that way anymore. So, it’s like we’ve got to lean into this technology and say: There’s a right way to do this and a wrong way to do it. Let’s not do it the wrong way. Let’s get the smartest people together. All right. How do we make this work? Okay, how do we keep people employed? How do we take what they do and expand and deliver games quicker that are still high quality?<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Q:<\/span> How does Rockstar avoid massive studio delays? Do they simply have infinite time and money?<\/b><\/p>\nJR:<\/b><\/span> I don’t like using the term “unicorn,” but there’s a few out there. Naughty Dog, you could say probably Rockstar, too. They’re probably on a different playing field. And that’s because of the leadership. That’s because of the IP they’ve developed. And that’s also because of the technology.<\/span><\/p>\nThey have incredible engines. They have great teams that know what they’re doing. They try to keep them together. And they’re able to produce on a different scale. But also, the publisher allows them to because they have proven results. They’ve proven to the market that they’re going to deliver something amazing. So, they get the extended period of time to polish, and most publishers don’t allow that. They can’t afford it.<\/span><\/p>\nWhen you have a game like Uncharted or a game like whatever Rockstar puts out, they’re giving them the ability to say, “Make the thing that you really want to make, and here’s the resources to go do that.” This is not common in the industry. They are really like a unicorn and a one-off. I wish other studios really were able to do that because I’m sure you’d have other games that are on that level. But they just have a great way of approaching a game. Plus, the talent they hire is exceptional. They really find… They’re really good at hiring great people. And that’s also an art in its own way.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"GTA](\"https:\/\/www.eldorado.gg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/GTA-6-Jason-and-Lucia-scaled.webp\")
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After two delays, GTA 6 is finally releasing on November 19, 2026<\/em><\/p>\nQ:<\/span> What technical feature would you implement in GTA 6 that was impossible in GTA 5?<\/b><\/p>\nJR:<\/b><\/span> I think when you make a video game, and this isn’t just for GTA, this is for all games. It’s really expensive to shoot a lot of that animation data in mocap, and it takes a long time. But a lot of the performance and story is derived from what an actor brings to that character. And developing that is also a great journey.<\/span><\/p>\nIf we could fast-track the performance and get more directly to those performances quicker, that would be an amazing thing. I was on a board of a company that actually helped develop a technology where you don’t need to wear motion-capture suits anymore.<\/span><\/p>\nSo if I could take less friction on a performance stage, on a mocap stage, I think that’s one thing that I would really look into for the future of game development. And that was a company called Yoom. And they were acquired last year by Take-Two. And who knows what they’re doing with that. I wasn’t in those conversations. I just helped develop and drive the technology. That’s one thing I would do.<\/span><\/p>\nAnd the next thing I would do is something that we talked about. I’d start developing those UGC tools. I want players to create their own universes within the universe that I give them. So, I would say, “What does that look like? How can we develop that?” I would really start to think about who those creators out there are that have made their channels based around the love of the projects that I have made. And it doesn’t matter what IP that is, and I would start developing towards building them a pipeline that is efficient and easy to understand so that they can publish content within my universe. Because that’s where we’re all going with this. And whoever figures that out the fastest is going to reap the rewards.<\/span><\/p>\nI would also say… don’t lose your identity. We’re getting… I think a lot of studios right now, they got lost in a few things, and I’ll tell you what I mean. I’m not going to say which studio. But I noticed it was a few studios that I worked at. I noticed the leaning too far into kind of what’s popular today. Accessibility was one of them. I saw studios spend a tremendous amount of money to make development tools to make a game for blind people, for example. And that’s amazing. I think that’s a really valiant effort. I was on that team for a couple of projects. But that took away the essence of what the game should have been for the majority of the players, and the game suffered from that. Instead of looking at it the other way around, saying, “Hey, let’s make a game for our core community. Let’s make that the best experience ever and then let’s develop these tools after.” There was a problem with leaning into the order of that.<\/span><\/p>\nI think that you can replace accessibility with other popular themes, and sometimes in a political direction as well. We’re kind of getting lost in why we make games. When I make a game, I’m the guy in the studio that represents the player. I say, “Hey guys, who’s representing the player on the couch or on the computer chair?” Are we thinking about their experience enough? We get lost in game development. We have this thing of Groundhog Day, and you’re just ticking boxes. I have to make this asset look amazing. I have to do this thing. I have to go do that. I have to do this. I have to make sure the UI is working. And it’s easy to understand, but we have an issue with saying… How does this really make the player on the couch… How are they going to adapt to this? How are they going to respond to this? Is it going to make their game more enjoyable?<\/span><\/p>\nIt’s something… a term that I use… You’ve probably heard of this term called “flow state.”When I say that everything we do in game development, I go, “Is this going to disrupt the player’s flow state?” And what is a flow state for a player? I forget I’m holding a controller. I want to forget that I am playing a game. I want to be pulled in. I want to be that character. I want to immerse myself in this world, and I don’t want things interrupting that flow. So we have to say to ourselves as developers: Are we intentionally disrupting their flow for a reason? Okay, it better be worth that reason. Okay, and this is another issue about game development today: we’re worried about all these little things. They keep popping up. Making this flow state is everything.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Q:<\/span> How do you expect Rockstar to balance realism and satirical humor in GTA 6?<\/b><\/p>\nJR:<\/b><\/span> I mean, Rockstar is probably a different company than when I was there. I did GTA and Max Payne, and I worked on Red Dead. My first day at Rockstar was the last day of Red Dead one: Undead Nightmare. I don’t know if you remember that game. It was like a zombie DLC. That was my first day. So, it’s a totally different company. I hope that they haven’t lost their identity. I think that they should continue because satire is part of their IP. It’s their storytelling. It’s their humor. It kind of is a driving force for how they write. I would only hope that they keep that. I think they’re going to keep that. That’s probably a given. And where they go with that, I’m not worried about Rockstar in any way.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Q:<\/span> What key shifts in studio culture have changed how video games are built today?<\/b><\/p>\nJR:<\/b><\/span> I think that we’ve lost the ability to make games and have fun doing it. It’s become a more stressful environment, especially for aspiring game developers or junior artists coming into this field. It was scary. It wasn’t like that.<\/span><\/p>\nThe first studios that I worked at, I got to work at some amazing places. It all started shifting, right? Around… that whole mentality started changing and adapting. And we kind of lost the fun factor. We make games! It should be really fun to make games. We should have a kick-ass time doing it. And unfortunately, it’s gotten a little bit overly dependent on a lot of factors like, “What’s the financial success of this? What’s the model behind this?” And it’s falling into the trap that Hollywood is trying to get out of right now. And it’s a really bad situation that Hollywood is in. And we have to make sure we don’t get that far deep.<\/span><\/p>\nHollywood is struggling tremendously. I mean, you have a situation where LA could become a Detroit situation if they don’t turn it around. I mean, everyone’s going everywhere else. I think they’ll rebound, and there’s hope there, but video games are in a similar situation right now. Games have gotten way too big, with way too much outsourcing. The vision is not focused early enough. There’s not enough leaning into the development of pre-production and the vision.<\/span><\/p>\nBefore you start a race, when you watch a horse race, what is the first thing you see? They all line up, and they face the same direction before the guy shoots the gun and they start racing. A game development team today\u2026 each horse is a department. Some of those horses are not starting the race at the same time. I can promise you that. Some horses are facing the other direction. Some horses are guys just running because they lost a horse. That is game development today, in a nutshell.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Q:<\/span> Why are game development pipelines becoming so disjointed across departments?<\/b><\/p>\nJR:<\/b><\/span> No, it’s the opposite. It’s the driving force behind some of the development of why you make a game is predicated on the sort of… what is the output, what is the potential of what the game could be… is driving some of those decisions early on.<\/span><\/p>\nAnd then when you mix that with legacy development cadences and not leaning into technology today to sort of fast-track problems and fail fast, you have a recipe for disaster. You have a recipe for starting a race, which is starting development at the wrong point in time. And then you can’t finish a race together if you don’t start a race together. So that is the situation that the game development kind of ecosystem has found itself in.<\/span><\/p>\nAnd another thing is the constant playing catch-up. So, a new game comes out that’s explosive and has a huge community. And then everybody else who’s in development, making something else, tries to bend to the systems and the design of that game, and they lean towards that, and they get away from whatever the vision is that they’re making. And sometimes that can work, but you have a Frankenstein of the game that you’re two years in, and now you’re introducing a new system that is very disruptive to the entire gameplay mechanic that you’ve developed for. And now you’re like, “Wait, what is this?” And you can see that in games… I don’t want to name-drop too many, but I love a couple like Concord, the Justice League games. There are a few out there that fell to that trap.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Q:<\/span> Can studios correct these development inefficiencies, or must we wait for an economic shift?<\/b><\/p>\nJR:<\/b><\/span> No, it’s not going to be an economic shift that changes what’s happening. It’s just like if you wait for AI to see where AI goes, you’re going to be left behind. That’s what’s going to happen. If studios are waiting and waiting and publishers keep waiting, there’s a point where it becomes too detrimental to wait for too long.<\/span><\/p>\nSo what you have to do right now is you have to know your vision, and you have to know your customer. And you also have to say: Which tools are going to get us there the fastest without sacrificing quality? And now you have to say: Is this team functional, or is this team too legacy?<\/span><\/p>\nAnd unfortunately, you’re seeing what’s happening. A lot of studio leads, a lot of directors that have been around for a long time, they’re the first that are going right now because they’re like, “Hey, your ideas may have been great 20 years ago or 10 years ago. This is not working anymore. We need you to lean into efficiencies. We need you to lean into faster production cadences.” And so, if you don’t lean back into them, you’re out. And unfortunately, we still have a lot of cleaning to do in this industry. I see it every day when I meet with developers. I’m like: How is this person still talking about these types of production mentalities? It’s dying.<\/span><\/p>\nThere are some people on the Titanic who went down with the ship. And unfortunately, that’s a reality. But there are lifeboats on every single ship that sinks. And some people who are smart are going to get on that lifeboat. And those lifeboats are more efficient teams with a strong vision and AI-assisted development pipelines…<\/span><\/p>\nThere are a few of these rafts and some of the islands out there \u2013 there’s safety. They’ll find safety, and they’ll build their own communities. They’ll build great ecosystems, and you’re going to see what I call a kind of content revolution is going to happen, and you’re going to be like, “Wow, the options are endless for what I want to play.” And I think we’re actually heading in that direction.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Q:<\/span> Are any studios successfully operating with smaller teams and hyper-efficient tools?<\/b><\/p>\nJR:<\/b><\/span> I think the Swedes are having kind of a game design revolution themselves. The Swedish development teams \u2013 Embark started to do that. I hope that they could turn it around.<\/span><\/p>\nAnd there are others that, just in that area, they’re very good at knowing what they’re making and leaning into that vision, and, with a smaller team and a smaller budget, they’re able to develop AAA-plus with the smaller teams. So I would say the Swedes are a good model for what they’re doing.<\/span><\/p>\nHelldivers 2: this is a team that is a quarter or at least half the size of any development team I’ve ever been on, and they have way less funding. So how are they able to have concurrent players still and do all this? I think that is a good model.<\/span><\/p>\nExtraction shooters, I think, are still here to stay. I think we’re having some issues right now with a few products out there. But I think we’re seeing a few studios kind of stand up and be recognized for these new ideas: smaller teams, efficient pipelines, leaning into technology, and knowing what you’re making and knowing your client and your player base. That is the formula that works.<\/span><\/p>\nThese big, kind of legacy studios like the Ubisofts, like the EAs… I think they have a chance to adapt and get there. I just think that there’s a lot of luggage that’s heavy that they’d have to let go of and say, “All right, we have to let go of this thing. We have to sunset this thing.” Maybe it’s also an engine thing. A lot of engines aren’t able to adapt to kind of new technologies, so it’s more expensive to try to integrate than to build a new engine altogether. So there are a lot of decisions that need to be made right now so that more efficient development teams that are smaller can do what some of the Swedish studios are doing.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Q:<\/span> Are legacy publishers like EA and Ubisoft at risk if they fail to modernize?<\/b><\/p>\nJR:<\/b><\/span> EA and Ubisoft have to move quick. And I think they’ll get there. There’s great leadership there. I know some people that work at both, and I think they’re some of the most talented people in the whole industry. And they just have to get out of their way. And they’ll find it.<\/span><\/p>\nI think everyone is waiting for what GTA 6 does. We’re all excited. Everybody wants to play that game. Everyone wants to get lost in it and be inspired again. So, I think that when that does happen, we’re all looking for Rockstar to kind of give us a sigh of relief. It’s like: Hey, great games can still be made. You can still have fun. You can still get lost. You look at what they’ve done… the industry is not dying, okay? It’s not happening. We’re going to recover from all of this. We’re going to have great games that come out in the future.<\/span><\/p>\nIt’s almost like if the house is on fire and you’re in the living room and the kitchen is burning, but the exit is through the kitchen. You’ve got to go through, and you’re going to get a little bit burnt, or it’s going to hurt a little bit. It’s going to sting. The industry right now is waiting to run through that fire. I mean, or it’s in the fire, running through it. You know what I mean? There’s light at the end of the tunnel where<\/span><\/p>\nI say: Anybody out there, learn those tools. Start to learn to be ethical in how you approach new technology and AI. It’s okay. Don’t be afraid of it. Work through it. And if you want to try CinepipeAI, we’re taking on design partners right now. I wish I could tell you some of the conversations that I’m in, but I can tell you that this is a big deal. What we’re making is a big deal.<\/span><\/p>\nIt may say the word “cine,” but it’s way bigger than that. And there are other tools out there that are doing things not exactly like us, but there are a lot of life rafts. Cinepipe is one of those lifeboats to provide the industry with an effective productivity tool. All right? You are not a lighting artist, but you want to light your scene in a high, incredible way. You can put that hat on now.<\/span><\/p>\nI think I would recommend all artists out there: Have a focus, but have a secondary focus because you have the ability to do that now. You don’t have to be afraid of trying new ideas and trying different departments. You can go be all of those things if you really wanted to be. And that to me signals that there is a lot of hope actually because you could develop a team of 10 people that actually feel like a team of a hundred right now. It’s just people haven’t woken up fully to that realization.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Q:<\/span> How did working long hours and crunch feel from the inside during your time at Rockstar?<\/b><\/p>\nJR:<\/b><\/span> When you love what you’re making, you’re not “crunching.” This idea that any studio has a “crunch”… there are milestones. Teams hit them. Sometimes teams slip. Sometimes some people work less or more. It’s not that big of a deal. It’s part of the industry.<\/span><\/p>\nThe thing is: we’re getting away from that as an industry. We’re starting to move away from that because of efficiency and tooling. And my whole thing is: What I do today is I try to define, and I try to move towards what I call “reverse crunch.” What does that look like? Okay, if I can get my job done and do all those amazing things \u2013 it used to take me a week to do this thing, and now I can do it in two to three days \u2013 I can go do the next thing and save time and actually maybe go home early and award my team: “You’ve hit your goals this week, and we’re doing more with less.” Okay, that’s reverse crunch. So, that’s how I kind of see the industry moving. And we’re getting there. I think we’re going to be fine. But every studio has ups and downs. It is a normal thing.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Q:<\/span> What do you miss most about your early career developing titles at Rockstar and Xbox?<\/b><\/p>\nJR:<\/b><\/span> I had an incredible time making the games that I made at Rockstar, at Xbox. It’s all fun when you’re making fun games. When you’re a younger, bright-eyed young developer, you are going, “Wow, I’m making a game that’s my favorite franchise, and wow, I’m the guy doing a thing in that game, in that universe, and I’m making a big impact.” I definitely cherish those memories.<\/span><\/p>\nRockstar itself left a profound impact on how I approach my games today nd how to do things the right way, how to do things… how to avoid things… You can’t avoid your personal kind of feelings of how you develop things, and they stick with you. There were great teams back then. There’s probably great teams today. But that could be said for every studio I ever worked with.<\/span><\/p>\nIt’s about the game you’re making at the time and where you’re at in your life. I was a young guy when I was making those games. I was in my early 20s. I’m 40. I mean, that was almost more than 20 years ago. I was a kid! I was a kid. And they were like, “Hey, use this camera. Go develop tools.” I was like, “How do I do all that stuff?” You know, that discovery and that journey was incredible. It really was.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Q:<\/span> Which individuals at Rockstar were most influential in driving the technical and creative success of titles like GTA V?<\/b><\/p>\n
![\"Joe](\"https:\/\/www.eldorado.gg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Joe-Rubino-interview.webp\")
Joe Rubino is a veteran game developer, virtual cinematography specialist, and former Rockstar Games cutscene product owner who worked on titles including Grand Theft Auto V, Red Dead Redemption, and Max Payne 3.<\/p>\n