Recently, news surfaced regarding a planned Grand Theft Auto 6 mass marketing campaign that would land in Miami-Dade County, the ‘real-world’ Vice City, and the region upon which the upcoming game is based. An earlier report claimed that the mayor’s office was in talks with ‘executives from the company behind GTA’ about a monster marketing deal that would transform the area.
The proposal, which would see billboards propped up, ‘Welcome to Vice City’ signs displayed at airports, and Miami’s Metromover train wrapped in GTA 6 branding, was met with immediate backlash. Most recently, Miami-Dade County Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz spoke up to oppose the potential deal.
The Very Thing We Want to Avoid
In a statement captured by the Miami Herald, Cordero-Stutz said:
Grand Theft Auto is a video game franchise built around criminal activity.
Its fictional world includes murder, robbery, drug trafficking, carjacking, violence against law enforcement, and other conduct that the men and women of the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office work every single day to prevent.
The sentiment expanded on a statement provided by Miami-Dade Commissioner Juan Carlos Bermudez, a frontrunner for the next mayoral spot:
Miami-Dade County has spent decades building a reputation as a world-class destination for tourism, business, investment, and opportunityWe should be promoting the Miami-Dade we have worked so hard to build, not a fictional version of our community defined by crime and violence.
It’s not clear how much the county is asking for from Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar Games for the proposed marketing deal, nor is there any solid ground to suggest it’ll actually go ahead. It’s getting pretty close to the game’s release date, and it could be argued that it doesn’t need that much marketing, especially not a city-wide takeover.
The recent gameplay reveal that dropped on Netflix set records as the broadcaster’s most-watched show ever, turning tens of millions of heads near instantly upon dropping. The reveal and subsequent hype then further pushed up console sales, with folks getting their hardware lined up in anticipation of the game.
GTA 6 lands on November 19. Do you think it needs this level of marketing? Let us know your thoughts on the Insider Gaming Discord server.
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Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
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