Grand Theft Auto V was launched on Monday night and hundreds of stores offered midnight openings for fans to get their hands on it. Caroline Lindsay finds out more about one of the biggest games franchises of this generation.
Video game Grand Theft Auto V is expected to generate £1 billion during its first year on sale. It’s the creation of Edinburgh-based Rockstar North, which evolved from Dundee company DMA Design Ltd. With sales of the groundbreaking franchise topping 135 million since its 1997 debut, this fifth instalment looks like being the biggest hit yet. Amazon has already sold out and 25 million copies are expected to be sold breaking current records.
Grand Theft Auto V has received rave reviews from critics across the board who have labelled it “one of the very best video games ever made.” Things haven’t always run smoothly for the franchise, however throughout the nineties the games were targeted by tabloids for their depiction of casual violence and, in 2005, the developers received a warning from the Federal Trade Commission after an explicit sex scene was hidden in the source code for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
Grand Theft Auto V is set in Los Santos, Rockstar’s Los Angeles, and features three very different criminals seeking to pull off a series of daring heists. The world is vast, taking in a whole city as well as mountain ranges, deserts and outback towns. Characters will have unprecedented freedom flying helicopters, scuba diving, even playing sports.
“For us, it starts with the characters,” says Rockstar founder Dan Houser. “The story is always driven by the characters; it’s always got to feel like someone you want to be propelled through the game world with. Then we’ll find a cool, interesting and amusing cast to juxtapose them with and make sure we’ve got a good range of types. If the process feels organic to us then we’re heading in the right direction.”.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; padding-top: 30px; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; height: auto; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }
The Game store in Dundee’s Murraygate was open at midnight on Monday and hundreds of excited gamers queued for hours to buy the game. Emma Houghton and her boyfriend Andrew Lindsay were among the crowd.
“I really wanted to go to the midnight launch because it’s supposed to be one of the best games ever made and allows you to do things that you would never do in real life not that I would want to but it’s fun in a game,” explained Emma, a first-year student in computer games design at Abertay University.
“It’s also unique in the way you can play as one of three characters, rather than just the one.”
Andrew, a third-year student on the same course, added: “There was a really good atmosphere while we were queuing and it was exciting to think that we’d be one of the first people to own GTA V. It’s the most expensive game ever made, and cost more than any movie to make, too, apart from the third Pirates of the Caribbean film.
“GTA games are great fun they give you a lot of freedom to do silly things you’d never do in real life and because this one is much bigger and more impressively made than the last four, it’s going to ramp that up a level.”