Ten years, thousands of staff and a billion dollars: the exclusive inside story of Grand Theft Auto VI

详细摘要

The latest instalment of the epic crime saga is finally here. We visit Rockstar Games for a hands-on encounter with the cultural event of the decade – and can confirm it’s more…

The latest instalment of the epic crime saga is finally here. We visit Rockstar Games for a hands-on encounter with the cultural event of the decade – and can confirm it’s more than lives up to the hype

It still comes as a surprise for many to learn that Grand Theft Auto, the brazenly American crime series that has been one of the world’s most popular and most controversial video games for the past 20 years, is mainly made in Scotland. But if you grow up in Edinburgh, developer Rockstar North is part of the background mythology of the place. Plenty of people passed through this studio at some point or another in the 2000s, as game testers or employees. As a student in Edinburgh at that time, I would hear rumours of wild parties at the executives’ houses, as decadent as those in the game.

The setting of the latest Grand Theft Auto game really could not be further from the Scottish capital. Grand Theft Auto VI takes us to Vice City in the state of Leonida, a parody of Miami, Florida. It is a neon-soaked metropolis of sleaze and struggle, hard-partying excess juxtaposed with a barely concealed criminal underworld and unpredictable Florida madness.

One month before release, it is quiet at Rockstar’s headquarters. A lot of people have finished their labour on the game and are taking time off in the run-up to launch – a well-deserved rest after more than 10 years of development. Those who remain here are caught in the strange no man’s land between finishing a piece of art and releasing it into the world. When it does come out, GTA VI is expected to be the most profitable piece of entertainment ever made, projected to shift tens of millions of copies and earn billions in its first year; its predecessor, 2013’s GTA V, sold 230m copies.

For many players, meanwhile, the 13-year wait for a new Grand Theft Auto has become unbearable. When footage of GTA VI made its glitzy premiere on Netflix, it almost took the streaming giant’s servers down.

文章开头，摘自The Guardian Business。如需阅读全文，请前往媒体网站。