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How does he feel to be part of a medium that can, with some justification claim to be the new rock n roll?

“I am really not the right age to ask, but I think you might find that 25 year olds now discuss games in the same way that we used to discuss music. We recently employed someone from the music industry, and he said that in his years no one ever said, ‘music changed my life’ any more. He gets that all the time with people who want to work for us.

“What strikes me now is that for anyone under the age of 60, it’s impossible to hear music that shocks or appals you. It must be very difficult for a teenager to share music with Dad, who can then pick out where all the riffs came from. It might be a nice bonding experience, but it dulls the sense of discovery, doesn’t give you the same chance to forge your own identity.”

The problem with games, as distinct from rock, is surely that in 20 years’ time, no one will still be playing GTA IV, whereas the Beatles will still be around.

“We do think about that,” Housers concedes. “These games are things that we put a lot of time and effort into but that technology has now made obsolete. Of course, you think is this completely disposable? Maybe the games are close to getting good enough where they will be playable in a few years’ time.

“Games are part of the modern entertainment industry, and maybe they’ll come to be considered an artistic medium – that’s a whole separate discussion – but what they are not is pure software.”

And, for all the trappings of the Manhattan lifestyle, England still has its appeal.

“Whether you live in London, New York or Tokyo,” says Houser, “the sheer venality of the life can get you down. After a while you start to think: 'I can’t take this any more. I want to go somewhere where people are miserable in a different way.'

“I don’t think in 11 years it had ever been 7 months since I was last here, so by the end of September/October I was incredibly keen to get to Europe.”

Mum and Dad – she a former actress (who once, appropriately, appeared in The Sweeney), he a jazz saxophonist and stalwart of Ronnie Scott's – still live in Sheen. They are, Houser says, proud of their sons, “though not so much that they'd actually play the games”. Shame. If Dad did plug in his console, he'd see a likeness of himself playing sax in the park in The Ballad of Gay Tony. It's his boys' way of saying thank you.

As for the boys themselves, they are already back at work. There's a Western game in the works for next spring, and the next GTA to think of. “We'll think of a city first, then the characters,” says Houser. The script he will end up co-writing will run to around 1,000 pages, nearly ten times as much as a feature film.

Surely he can't keep this up forever, especially as now he's a father. Has the experience changed him at all?

“Only through exhaustion.” He smiles. “It changes your appreciation of the world, but only in a positive way. You are suddenly not as important as you thought you were. As a man in particular you realise how appallingly selfish or self-absorbed you are, and seeing that change is great.”

But then even family life must take its place alongside Grand Theft Auto. “For anyone in our industry it’s a challenge because the hours are long and the work is hard. But… you know I like my work and I like my family. I don’t socialise that much, so I’m happy.”

The day after we meet, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars adds to Houser’s happiness by winning the players’ vote for best handheld game of the year at the prestigious Golden Joystick awards in London. It is the eighth consecutive year that GTA has won an award.

As usual, at the awards ceremony, Dan Houser was nowhere to be seen.

Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City is out now on the Xbox 360.

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