Long time Rockstar Games and Grand Theft Auto producer Lazlow Jones left the company after almost 20 years.
According to IGN and GTA content creator GTAMen, his LinkedIn profile claims that Jones left the company in April and has since been working with Disney and Netflix. He's also been consulting for an undisclosed video game company.
Jones has been a writer for the GTA games you know and love, and you may recognize his voice because he is the in-game radio host for WCTR's Chattersphere. He has reprised a fictional version of himself, since Grand Theft Auto III, so Lazlow's a staple of the series that fans recognize. He's like the Stan Lee of Rockstar Games.
MobyGames says that he led the audio direction for Red Dead Redemption 2, and in addition to the GTA series, he was a producer for Bully: Scholarship Edition, Max Payne 3, and L.A. Noire, among many others.
This resignation came months after Rockstar Games' Co-Founder Dan Houser left the company in February. He was the writer and producer on every title Rockstar put out with his final magnum opus being Red Dead Redemption 2. He also worked with the company for 15-20 years since founding it.
From the outside looking in, it seems like there's a new direction for Rockstar Games with the incredible success of GTA Online. In May, digital sales net revenue grew 41% from last year for Take-Two Interactive's fiscal financial report with Grand Theft Auto Online and Grand Theft Auto V being associated with that number (via Business Wire).
With more of a focus on recurrent spending among its over 130 million player base (via Eurogamer), perhaps Rockstar Games will be sticking with GTAV for the foreseeable future. This might be why staff members like Dan Houser and now Lazlow Jones have stepped down from their positions at the company.
Grand Theft Auto V will be making the jump to PS5 sometime in 2021. To celebrate, Rockstar Games will be giving GTA Online players on PS4 $1 million of in-game cash every month until it launches. There will also be exclusive content coming to next-gen platforms, but those details haven't been surmised yet.