Grand Theft Auto (series)

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Grand Theft Auto (commonly abbreviated as GTA) is an open world action-adventure crime sandbox barbie video-game series, as well as one of the longest video-game series, published by Rockstar Games and developed by its subsidiary companies, including Rockstar North (formerly DMA Design Limited), Rockstar Leeds, Rockstar Toronto and Rockstar Lincoln. The first games were developed by Rockstar North (formerly DMA Design) and BMG Interactive (a subsidiary of BMG Records). The first game of the series was released in 1997.

There are currently sixteen games in the series, plus two expansion packs for the original and two expansions for GTA IV and including a multiplayer title. The games have been released for various platforms (e.g. Microsoft Xbox (Original Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S), Sony PlayStation (PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4, PS5), PC (Windows, MS-DOS), macOS (OS X) and Sega Dreamcast), including the Game Boy Color (GBC) Game Boy Advance (GBA), PlayStation Portable (PSP), Nintendo DS, iOS, Android and Fire OS, with all but two of the games released on multiple platforms.

There has been much controversy involving the series. The unofficial Hot Coffee mod and subsequent uproar gave Rockstar Games a huge amount of press attention.

Grand Theft Auto currently holds 10 world gaming records, including the Most Guest Stars in a Video Game Series, Largest Voice Cast in a Video Game (Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas), Largest In-Game Soundtrack (Grand Theft Auto IV), and Most Successful Entertainment Launch Of All Time (Grand Theft Auto V). The Grand Theft Auto series is also ranked 6 in the best-selling video-game franchises of all time. Its main series of games include Grand Theft Auto (1997), Grand Theft Auto 2 (1999), Grand Theft Auto III (2001), Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002), Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004), Grand Theft Auto IV (2008) and Grand Theft Auto V (2013). Expansion packs include Grand Theft Auto: London 1969 and Grand Theft Auto: London 1961 (both released 1999) and Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned and Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony (both released 2009). Handheld GTA games include Grand Theft Auto Advance (2004), Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (2005), Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (2006) and Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (2009). Grand Theft Auto has also been released in compilations and remasters, including Grand Theft Auto: Director’s Cut (1999), Grand Theft Auto: The Classics Collection and Grand Theft Auto: Double Pack (both released 2003), Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy (2005), Grand Theft Auto: Double Pack and Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City (2009), Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete Edition (2010) and Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition (2021).

The original incarnation of the series, Grand Theft Auto, is the only game out of the whole series to have been rated Teen (T) by the ESRB, while the majority of the games were rated M, including Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which was temporarily given the Adults Only (AO) rating, after modders exploited the Hot Coffee mod, and was reverted back to the Mature (M) rating after Take-Two Interactive, the owner of Rockstar Games, was forced to re-release the game to restore the M rating.

Gameplay

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The GTA games allows to play as an upcoming criminal in big cities based on real-life places. The player can use various weapons, as well driving various vehicles.

The games are build up from many missions, given by many characters, such as, drugs dealers, mafia members, gangsters, famous people and other similars. The player can choose the time of doing the missions, as well the order of the missions, if more than one are available. Other than story-line missions, there are also side-missions and tasks which the player must do for 100% completion of the game.

The player has almost unlimited freedom, and can explore the games’ locations at almost any time they want. If the player is to start commiting crimes, various law enforcers and law enforcement agencies will come to the player’s location to the player by arresting or killing them.

The games include various weapons, such as M1911, Glock pistols, Desert Eagle, AK-47, Uzi, MP-5 and melee weapons like bats, knifes, swords and many others.

The player can drive variety of vehicles: cars, trucks, bikes, airplanes, helicopters, boat, ships, hovercrafts. In almost every game, the player can change the color of land vehicles by visiting a Pay ‘n Spray. The player can get vehicles by stealing them, buying them, order them from friends (GTA IV Era only), or given them by NPCs.

Overview

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The games allow the player to take on the role of a criminal in a big city, typically an individual who rises through the ranks of organised crime through the course of the game. Various missions are set for completion by the figureheads of the city underworld, generally criminal, which must be completed to progress through the storyline. Assassinations, and other crimes feature regularly, but occasionally taxi driving, firefighting, pimping, street racing, or learning to fly fixed-wing aircraft are also involved as alternate adventures, which can be done at any time during the game, with the exception of the periods performing main missions.

The Grand Theft Auto series, belonging to a genre of free-roaming video games called “sandbox games,” grants a large amount of freedom to the player in deciding what to do and how to do it through multiple methods of transport and weapons. Unlike most traditional action games, which are structured as a single track series of levels with linear gameplay, in GTA the player can determine the missions they want to undertake, and their relationships with various characters are changed based on these choices. The cities of the games can also be roamed freely at any point in the game, offering many accessible buildings and minor missions. There are exceptions: missions follow a linear, overarching plot, and some city areas must be unlocked over the course of the game. Although you can explore the entire city or state even it is locked (but there are limited time to explore some city because some may trigger a 4-wanted level or 6-wanted level) and ignore the missions.

Setting

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See: Grand Theft Auto World and United States of America.

Controversies surrounding the franchise

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According to The Guinness World Records 2008 and 2009 Gamer’s Edition, it is the most controversial video game series in history, with over 4,000 articles published about it, which include accusations of glamorizing violence, corrupting gamers, and connection to real life crimes.

Grand Theft Auto 1

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The game was controversial from the first incarnation of the series. Grand Theft Auto was condemned in Britain, Germany, and France due to its “extreme violence”, and Brazil banned it outright. Publicist Max Clifford planted sensational stories in tabloids in order to help sell the first game.

Grand Theft Auto III

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The controversies flared up again with Grand Theft Auto III, since the 3D graphics made the violence more realistic, and players could pay for the services of prostitutes to restore their health, and if they wished, kill them to get some of their money back.

There is also criticism from the focus on illegal activities in comparison with traditional “heroic” roles that other games offer. The main character can commit a wide variety of crimes and violent acts while dealing with only temporary consequences, including the killing of policemen and military personnel.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

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The sixth game in the series, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, also came under criticism. One mission in particular, in which the player must instigate a gang war between Haitian and Cuban gangs, has been controversial. Haitian and Cuban anti-defamation groups criticized the game.

Jean-Robert Lafortune of the Haitian American Grassroots Coalition is quoted as saying that “The game shouldn’t be designed to destroy human life, it shouldn’t be designed to destroy an ethnic group,” for this and similar scenarios, including lines in the game’s script such as “kill the Haitian dickheads” said by character “Diaz” during an altercation between the player and a Haitian gang. After the threat of a lawsuit by the Haitian-American Grassroots Coalition, Rockstar removed the word “Haitians” from this phrase in the game’s subtitles.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

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San Andreas was criticized initially due to its “gangster” elements, which include drugs, prostitution, and murder. It later received additional criticism after the discovery of an interactive sex minigame, nicknamed Hot Coffee; initially cut from the game, it remained in the game code, and was discovered in both the console and Windows versions of the game.

After the release of San Andreas, modders managed to find the unused code in the game and released unofficial patches for the Windows and Xbox (with a modchip) versions as well as a PlayStation 2 version through the use of an Action Replay code enabling the player to engage in these sexual mini-games (dubbed “Hot Coffee” in reference to a euphemism for sex used in the game). These mini-games were left partially intact in the game’s code. This prompted application of an AO (Adults Only) ESRB rating to the version of the game containing the leftover code. Take-Two Interactive was forced to re-release the game in order to restore the M (Mature) rating. A class action lawsuit against Take-Two was also filed as a result of the “Hot Coffee” code.

Grand Theft Auto IV

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One of the controversies involved with this game was Mothers Against Drunk Driving’s (MADD) criticism of the ability to drink and drive as a new feature. MADD had even requested ESRB to change the rating of the game from “M” for ages seventeen and up to “AO”, for adults only, because they felt it was inappropriate for children, even at the age of seventeen, to experience drunk driving in such a manner. In the final game, drunk driving is a playable event, but it is a crime that automatically generates a wanted rating and main playable character Niko Bellic loudly (and drunkenly) proclaims that it is a “bad idea” and that he “should know better”.

Notably, it is impossible to drive while drunk in the GTA IV expansions, The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony. These were released after the criticism. It is, however, possible to drive drunk again in the successor, Grand Theft Auto V.

The Lost and Damned

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The Lost and Damned expansion pack for Grand Theft Auto IV was condemned by US parents group Common Sense Media who issued a public warning against the pack’s content due to a full-frontal nudity scene during one of the cutscenes. They claimed the game was “more controversial than its predecessors” because it featured “full frontal male nudity”.

Chinatown Wars

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There has been some controversy over a drug dealing minigame along with comments that some Nintendo games are being aimed at children (despite the fact that the game was rated Mature). The drug dealing mini-game allows players to peddle six types of drugs around the city, but the profit the player makes depends on market conditions, which will be based on the area in which they deal, and the level of regular service this area receives from them.

Grand Theft Auto V

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A segment in the latest instalment caused controversy for scenes containing player initiated torture. The mission “By the Book” features graphic depictions of kneecapping, electrocution, dental extraction and waterboarding, and the player is required to perform an act of torture in order to progress in the game.

UK-based charity Freedom from Torture publicly condemned the use of torture scenes in Grand Theft Auto V. The organization, who works to rehabilitate survivors of torture, joined other human rights charities who were outraged at a torture scene in the game in which the players have to pull teeth and electrocute an unarmed man in order to extract information. The charity’s CEO Keith Best stated: “Rockstar North has crossed a line by effectively forcing people to take on the role of a torturer and perform a series of unspeakable acts if they want to achieve success in the game.”

The game has also been accused of sexism. The Los Angeles Times considered the game’s satirical portrayals of women uncreative, and added that violent and sexist themes hurt the game experience. Edge noted that while “every female in the game exists solely to be sneered, leered or laughed at”, it treated its all-male lead characters in a similar vein through their stereotyped tendencies towards violence. Sam Houser, Rockstar Games co-founder, felt that the development team sometimes overlooked their portrayal of women in Grand Theft Auto games, but that the weight towards male characters “fit with the story we wanted to tell”.

Lawsuits

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On top of controversies on the game’s franchise, there have also been lawsuits surrounding the franchise as well. Several celebrities have sued Rockstar Games and/or Take-Two Interactive for purportedly violating their intellectual property or personality rights, including hip-hop artist Daz Dillinger, Karen Gravano of Mob Wives, and actress Lindsay Lohan.

Lawsuit involving Jack Thompson

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Former lawyer Jack Thompson has been involved in a number of attempts to get families of murder victims to hold the Grand Theft Auto series accountable for the death of their loved ones. Due to his conduct in this and related cases, Thompson was disbarred in 2008 and was fined more than $100,000 by the Florida Bar Association.

On 20 October 2003, the families of Aaron Hamel and Kimberly Bede, two young people shot by teens William and Josh Buckner (who in statements to investigators claimed their actions were inspired by Grand Theft Auto III) filed a US$246 million lawsuit against publishers Rockstar Games, Take-Two Interactive Software, retailer Walmart, and PlayStation 2 manufacturer Sony Computer Entertainment America. Rockstar and its parent company, Take-Two, filed for dismissal of the lawsuit, stating in US District Court on 29 October 2003 that the “ideas and concepts as well as the ‘purported psychological effects’ on the Buckners are protected by the First Amendment’s free-speech clause”. The lawyer of the victims, Jack Thompson, denied that, but failed in his attempt to move the lawsuit into a state court and under Tennessee’s consumer protection act. Two days later, the plaintiffs filed a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal, and the case was closed.

In February 2005, a lawsuit was brought upon the makers and distributors of the Grand Theft Auto series claiming the games caused a teenager to shoot and kill three members of the Alabama police force. The shooting took place in June 2003 when Devin Moore, 17 years old at the time, was taken in for questioning by police in Fayette, Alabama regarding a stolen vehicle. Moore then grabbed a pistol from one of the police officers and shot and killed him along with another officer and dispatcher before fleeing in a police car. One of Moore’s attorneys, Jack Thompson, claimed it was Grand Theft Auto‘s graphic nature—with his constant playing time—that caused Moore to commit the murders, and Moore’s family agrees. Damages were being sought from branches of GameStop and Wal-Mart in Jasper, Alabama, the stores from which Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, respectively, were purchased and also from the games’ publisher Take-Two Interactive, and the PlayStation 2 manufacturer Sony Computer Entertainment. On 29 March 2006 the case was dismissed and permission to appeal was denied.

In May 2005, Jack Thompson appeared via satellite on the Glenn Beck program on CNN’s Headline News. Thompson mentioned Devin Moore and said, regarding Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, “There’s no doubt in my mind […] that but for Devin Moore’s training on this cop killing simulator, he would not have been able to kill three cops in Fayette, Alabama who are now dead and in the ground. We are suing Take-Two, Sony, Wal-Mart, and GameStop for having trained Devin Moore to kill. He had no history of violence. No criminal record.”

In September 2006, Thompson brought another lawsuit, claiming that Cody Posey played the game obsessively before murdering his father Delbert Paul Posey, stepmother Tryone Schmid, and stepsister Marilea Schmid on a ranch in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The suit was filed on behalf of the victims’ families. The suit alleged that were it not for his obsessive playing of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, the murders would not have taken place. Named in the suit were Cody Posey, Rockstar Games, Take-Two Interactive, and Sony. The suit asked for US$600 million in damages. During the criminal trial, Posey’s defense team argued he was abused by his father, and tormented by his stepmother. Posey was also taking Zoloft at the time of the killings. The lawsuit was dismissed in December 2007.

Modding and fan recreations

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Modding of Grand Theft Auto content, either within Grand Theft Auto games or recreated via other software, had generally performed by the player community since around the early 2000s, with one of the first major conversions being the recreation of Grand Theft Auto III‘s Liberty City within the Vice City engine. Around 2017, Take Two began taking action against these mods, specifically issuing a cease & desist letter to the makers of OpenIV that allowed modders to alter content from Grand Theft Auto IV and V. Take-Two said at the time that its issue was not directly with the mod itself, but that it “enables recent malicious mods that allow harassment of players and interfere with the GTA Online experience for everybody”, and that it was working with the OpenIV to find a amenable solution. OpenIV developers opted to remove the mod from circulation after several rounds of discussion with Take-Two. Take-Two issued a statement to clarify that it would not take action against single-player mods; this statement was updated in 2019 to exclude modders from including other Take-Two intellectual property or from “making new games, stories, missions, or maps”.

The Grand Theft Auto modding community worked under this response to continue to build out mods and other content within the bounds set by Take-Two. In February 2021, Take-Two issued a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown of two projects hosted at GitHub that had reverse-engineered the game engines for Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City, asserting that such reversing engineering was disallowed by the game’s EULA. On 10 June 2021, the project developers filed a counter-notice; per DMCA rules regarding disputes, the source code was restored after two weeks. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick stated the company has a “pretty flexible” view on user mods, asserting that “if the economy is threatened, or if there’s bad behavior, and we know how to define that, then we would issue a takedown notice”. However, the company proceeded to continue to file a lawsuit in California against the programmers behind this effort in September 2021, asserting that the programmers “are well aware that they do not possess the right to copy, adapt, or distribute derivative GTA source code, or the audiovisual elements of the games, and that doing so constitutes copyright infringement.” As part of the lawsuit, Take-Two issued another takedown notice to GitHub to remove the mods in October 2021. The modders, in their legal reply, asserted that use of the assets were within fair use, as the reversed engineered versions were transformative in nature and as neither Rockstar nor Take Two had issued any updates for years, did not harm the commercial prospects of the games.

Games

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List of Games

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Individual games in the series can be categorized into different ‘eras’, mostly depend on the storyline and the graphics engine used.The start of a new era is indicated by the generation of the consoles in which the games are on.

2D Universe

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In the 2D Universe there is the original game, the subsequent two expansion packs featuring missions in 1960’s London and GTA 2, which featured an improved graphics engine and a different style of gameplay. Whilst originally just called “Grand Theft Auto”, the first game and era have become known as “GTA 1” for clarity.

3D Universe

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The 3D Universe featured the first blockbuster GTA title, Grand Theft Auto III, and introduced a 3D game world and a third person perspective. The entire era contains interlocking storylines, and many characters appear across multiple games. Notably, games in this era were not released in chronological order, with first game released being the last chronologically, and the last game released being the first chronologically.

• 5. Grand Theft Auto III (2001) – Set in fictional

  Liberty City

  , based upon the real life

  New York City

  . Multiplayer game mode was lost, but other areas were much improved, namely the graphics, voice acting, storyline with non-linear gameplay.

• 6. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002) – Set in

  Vice City

  , a city based on real life

  Miami

  . This sequel to GTA III is technically a prequel (set in 1986) to the game, and to GTA San Andreas, which was released after GTA Vice City.

• 7. Grand Theft Auto Advance (2004) – What was originally supposed to be a cut-down port of GTA III for the Game Boy Advance, turned out to be a completely original game, set a year before GTA III, in a slightly changed Liberty City.

• 8. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004) – Set in the

  state of San Andreas

  , featured three cities,

  Los Santos

  ,

  San Fierro

  and Las Venturas, based on

  Los Angeles

  ,

  San Francisco

  and

  Las Vegas

  respectively. The game is set in 1992, making it a sequel to GTA Vice City, and prequel to GTA III. The game featured a lot more customization options, for both players and vehicles.

See also:

The Introduction

• 9. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (2005) – A prequel set in Liberty City, 1998. Originally for the PlayStation Portable, a PS2 port was released in June 2006 without

  multiplayer

  .

• 10. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (2006) – Announced on May 10th during

  E3

  , is based in Vice City, 1984, two years before the original GTA Vice City, featuring Lance Vance’s brother Victor Vance as the protagonist. It was released in October 2006 for the PSP. A

  PS2

  port was released later without

  multiplayer

  in March

  2007

  .

It is generally believed that the 3D Universe has been completed, and there will be no more official expansions on the characters, storylines or engine. However modifications and fan fiction continue to build on these.

HD Universe

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The HD Universe features Rockstar’s new RAGE engine, also used in Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis. This era features

• 11. Grand Theft Auto IV (2008) – Set in 2008 in a redesigned

  Liberty City

  , with new game mechanics, a multiplayer mode, and with protagonist Niko Bellic trying to start a new life. GTA IV was released for Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 on April 28th, 2008, with a PC release on December 2nd, 2008.

• 12. The Lost and Damned (2009) – A downloadable episode released in February 2009 for the Xbox 360. TLAD is set in the same

  Liberty City

  as GTA IV, with events and characters overlapping with GTA IV. The protagonist is a biker, Johnny Klebitz, of The Lost Brotherhood biker gang. It is also available on a disc Episodes From Liberty City which includes The Ballad of Gay Tony also. It was released on PC (Games for Windows – LIVE) and PlayStation 3 in April 2010.

• 13. The Ballad of Gay Tony (2009) – A second episode for GTA IV released in October 2009, the last DLC for GTA IV. The protagonist is Luis Lopez, a part-time hoodlum and full-time assistant to legendary nightclub impresario Gay Tony. It was released on the same day as Episodes From Liberty City disc. It was released on PC (Games for Windows – LIVE) and PlayStation 3 in April 2010.

• 14. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (2009) – Set in 2009 and focusing on the Liberty City triads. The protagonist, Huang Lee is the son of a murdered Triad boss who comes to

  Liberty City

  . It is set in the same Liberty City as GTA IV (excluding

  Alderney

  , but scaled down for the Nintendo DS). PSP and

  iPhone

  ports were released later, including new missions, characters and radio stations and improved graphics.

• 16. Grand Theft Auto Online (2013) – Set shortly before the events of Grand Theft Auto V in 2013, is considered by Rockstar to the series’ first multiplayer title. The player assumes the role of an online protagonist, with the focus of the game being heavily centered on money. Grand Theft Auto Online was released on October 1, 2013, 14 days after the actual game and is played from within GTA V.

Gallery

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Games

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The Fan Base

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Grand Theft Auto has one of the largest fan bases of any game franchise. There are many unofficial Fansites about GTA games, providing the latest news, download databases, and often an online forum for the GTA community. Thousands of GTA fansites exist, ranging from small one-person news blogs to community-edited wikis (like this one) to massive downloads databases to forums with hundreds of thousands of members.

An activity popular with fans is modding – creating new vehicle models, skins, re-texturing of objects, and tweaking settings in the games’ configuration files. These modifications are made freely available on fansites for anyone to download and install into their game. Another popular pastime (since GTA III) is stunting – the act of performing wild stunts with vehicles, which are produced into compilation videos.

Another activity popular with members of the community is writing Fan Fiction – stories based on events which follow on from, or are based around events which happen in the games, but these are not to be considered canon.

The List of GTA Forums attempts to list all of the large communities, and by demonstrating just how big the community as a whole is.

These are a list of some of the most popular fan sites:

Trivia

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• Every GTA features an

  entry screen

  showing different

  artworks

  from the game, while the game loads.

• Every GTA cover since GTA III (except for Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars) features a helicopter on the top left corner of the cover art.
• Grand Theft Auto is the best selling Sandbox/Open World game series of all time.
• The GTA series has sold over 150 million copies on all platforms.
• GTA V was the fastest selling and most profitable entertainment product in history, making over $1 billion in just 3 days after it’s release.

Official Sites

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