Lazlow Jones, the host of radio station Chatterbox FM in 2001’s groundbreaking Grand Theft Auto 3, has many stories to tell about his 19-year career at Rockstar. But this is one of the best.
In an interview with IGN about the modern development studio Absurd Ventures, which he founded in 2020 with Rockstar legend Dan Houser, Jones recalled a “weird moment” when a GTA fan took a liking to the hit video game too seriously.
GTA fans are familiar with the Epsilon Program. It’s a religious cult whose followers are known as Epsilonists. In typical Rockstar style, Houser and Jones designed the Epsilon Program to lampoon Scientology, as well as the up-to-date messiah who runs the Ponzi scheme behind the scenes.
Rockstar created a counterfeit Epsilon Program website to promote San Andreas in 2004, and it was in that game that the virtual religion debuted as a cult founded by a con artist named Cris Formage. Lazlow Jones even interviews him on his in-game radio show.
Rockstar has added more and more to the Epsilon Program over the years, expanding it with the release of each GTA game. The Epsilon Program has always been an obvious satire and, to most people, a clear parody. But not to all.
During the development of GTA 5, Jones received a disturbing call from a “fan”. They left a message on his work phone. When he answered the call, Jones heard a woman introducing herself as a representative of the Epsilon Program followers. These were GTA players who had gone through all the games in the series in search of modern information about the religion and had formed a real group.
“We’re dying to know,” she said.
Was this person just an overly enthusiastic fan who wanted to learn more about the Epsilon program as part of a fun Easter egg hunt? Apparently not.
“She was basically saying they were followers of a false religion that we invented,” Lazlow Jones told IGN.
Jones went straight to Dan Houser’s office at Rockstar’s New York headquarters to tell him about “this crazy voicemail I got.”
“My second thought was that we should just invent a false religion and really get rich off of people searching for meaning in life!” he joked.
Jones and Houser weren’t put off by the mysterious caller, though. They doubled down on the Epsilon Program in GTA 5, creating various missions and cutscenes that revolved around the false religion. They even wrote a bible called the Epsilon Tract and split it into pieces that were scattered around the game world for players to find.
It’s difficult to believe that the Epsilon GTA program actually fooled anyone in real life into thinking it was a real religion. Maybe Jones misunderstood the phone call? Not true, he insisted.
“She really sounded like she was an Epsilon Program supporter,” he said. “It’s crazy when you satirize something… because we were very direct about it. We created a website for the Epsilon Program in 2004 and all the writing about it, in my head it’s very clear that it’s a money grab, a modern fictional religion. But they sounded like real supporters. That excited me and scared the living daylights out of me at the same time.”
Not believing what Lazlow Jones told me, I began searching the web to see if this was an isolated incident or if there was evidence that others believed the false GTA religion was real. There are a few joke posts here and there from people pretending to be Epsilonists, but there is little indication that the movement will be widespread, at least in 2024.
After all, according to Lazlow Jones, there were once true believers in this theory, and somehow they managed to get his work phone number.
Watch the full IGN interview with Lazlow Jones, where he talks about the A Better Paradise audio series and his modern company, Absurd Ventures.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter @wyp100. You can contact Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
