The BBC has covered the story of GTA V being released and has said that it could be one of the greatest exports from England.
As the latest instalment of the super-violent series hits the shelves around the world, many are taking a step back and assessing the cultural impact of a title that has changed not only the games industry, but perhaps even the entertainment business as a whole.
A shocking fact about the GTA series you may not realise is that even before today’s release of Grand Theft Auto 5, the GTA series has already sold more games than The Who have sold records. That is a mind blowing fact and shows how big this series really is. Across the world, the franchise has shifted more than 135 million units since its 1997 debut.
In the years since its release, the series would be named by the Guinness Book of Records as the most controversial video game in history – an accolade based mostly on the number of column inches dedicated to the series but had the game simply been about violence, it would not have stood the test of time, argues Brian Baglow, a writer on the first title in the series.
“The games sector had always been very good at blowing stuff up – creating more realistic bullet holes – but they had no real cultural relevance. GTA on the other hand, as it’s been set in a contemporary environment, has acted like a black mirror set up against society.”
In GTA5, for example, that mirror lashes out at many aspects of today’s popular culture, taking on foes including TV talent shows and social networking – a less-than-subtle dig at Facebook comes in the shape of “Lifeinvader”. Lifeinvader’s strapline, if the point needed pushing home further, is: “Where your personal information becomes a marketing profile (that we can sell).”
All the games – bar an early London-based spin-off – are set in the USA but crucial to the series’ success is that the world the characters inhabit is peppered with a distinctly British outlook, argues Mr Baglow.
“What GTA does is it actually take the American culture as we understand it from movies – it’s every gangster movie, it’s every crime caper. It uses that, but keeps it very grounded with a British sensibility.
“This is a very large part of the influence of Rockstar North, based in Edinburgh – there’s a tongue-in-cheek streak running throughout. That’s something that people tend to miss.”
The fifth instalment is forecast to sell in the region of 25 million copies within the first 12 months of its release but whether the series will be held up in the future as a prime example of British creative culture is still open to much debate.
Valve has made the first of three big announcements this week, the first being a free to download Steam Operating System.
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