As a video game franchise, "Grand Theft Auto" is criminally fun — and while it's easy to separate the games' shady shenanigans from the actions of its developers at Rockstar, some behind-the-scenes happenings sound like they came straight off the streets of Los Santos.
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00:00As a video game franchise, Grand Theft Auto is criminally fun.
00:04And while it's easy to separate the game's shady shenanigans from the actions of its
00:08developer at Rockstar, some behind-the-scenes happenings sound like they came straight off
00:13the streets of Los Santos.
00:14The Grand Theft Auto franchise is an unstoppable juggernaut, with over a dozen games offering
00:19players wacky escapism into a world of crime and satire.
00:24There's just something undeniably exhilarating about running absolutely wild in an open world
00:29like Los Santos or Liberty City.
00:31Given the nature of the GTA games, the series has remained a controversy magnet ever since
00:36its inception.
00:37Congressional hearings have been held to discuss the game's violence and adult content, while
00:42GTA developer Rockstar Games and parent company Take-Two Interactive have often found themselves
00:47on the receiving end of lawsuits and fan complaints over the years.
00:51Grand Theft Auto may be a series all about shady people, but here are a few occasions
00:56when the series itself came across as pretty shady on its own.
01:00While doing research for his book Jacked!
01:02The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto, journalist David Kushner discovered that many of the
01:07franchise's earlier controversies could be traced back to one man, a publicist named
01:12Max Clifford.
01:13Though he may not be a household name, Clifford made a career out of stoking outrage in the
01:18press to garner greater attention for his clients.
01:21Among his more famous attention-grabbing moves, Clifford paid people to make up steamy stories,
01:26about celebrities, and once claimed to have helped make the Beatles into a household name.
01:31When it came to Rockstar, one of Clifford's more offensive tactics included spinning a
01:35programmer's real-life car crash into a story about the people behind GTA being loose cannons.
01:41This almost got the game banned, and certainly got the public talking about Grand Theft Auto.
01:46When speaking with The Times in 2012, GTA co-creators David Jones and Mike Daly revealed,
01:52Max Clifford designed all the outcry.
01:54He told us how he would play the campaign, who he would target, what those people targeted
01:58would say.
01:59Every word he said came true.
02:02Grand Theft Auto V is one of the best-selling games of all time, with GTA Online still providing
02:07Rockstar with a steady flow of cash after a decade of play.
02:11Unfortunately, the game's high quality upon release didn't come easily.
02:15When news broke that the team making Cyberpunk 2077 would be working longer hours to complete
02:20the game on time, former Rockstar developer Liam Edwards revealed that six months of crunch
02:25time was added to the GTA 5 development cycle each time it was delayed.
02:29And it was delayed a total of three times.
02:32For those keeping score, that's an additional 18 months of longer work days.
02:36I asked for a fair day's pay after a fair day's work, then he kinda got a little angry.
02:43Of course, this isn't the first that fans have heard of crunch at Rockstar.
02:47As the studio reportedly enforced 100-hour work weeks leading up to the launch of Red
02:51Dead Redemption 2, this particular controversy brought the company's longstanding labor practices
02:56to light, for which Rockstar and Take-Two apologized.
02:59Edwards acknowledged that Rockstar has apparently changed its act since those days, but the
03:04difficult truth is that making Grand Theft Auto V took a lot out of its team.
03:09As if GTA Online wasn't already full of near-duels and rival gangs, it turns out that real-life
03:14criminal organizations are using the game as something of a recruitment tool.
03:18In 2022, Forbes reported that a woman named Alyssa Navarro was caught by Arizona Border
03:24Protection as she drove a car carrying 60 kilograms of methamphetamine in the back.
03:29Even scarier, she had done this without knowing she was participating in a crime.
03:34According to law enforcement, Navarro had simply accepted a job offered to her by a
03:38fellow GTA Online player, drive the car to its intended destination, and be paid upon
03:43arrival.
03:44Navarro was told she'd be moving electronics and was instructed not to go through the trunk.
03:48Who knows how much worse things could've gotten for Navarro should she'd actually gotten where
03:52she was headed?
03:53Because of this incident and others like it, authorities continue to keep tabs on Grand
03:57Theft Auto and other popular online games to ensure it doesn't happen again.
04:02Grand Theft Auto The Trilogy Definitive Edition stands as one of the franchise's biggest missteps
04:07in recent memory.
04:08The HD remasters of GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas were met with derision and ridicule
04:14from fans due to the number of glitches and visual issues plaguing the collection.
04:19Making matters worse was the fact that Rockstar Games was apparently so confident in its collection's
04:24success that it severely limited the availability of earlier versions of these games, pulling
04:29them from digital storefronts.
04:31"...Welcome home, Carl.
04:32Glad to be back."
04:34Though Rockstar never directly copped to removing the games in order to juice sales for the
04:38Trilogy, fans were pretty sure this was the company's reasoning.
04:42Following the negative backlash against the Trilogy, Rockstar announced that it would
04:45be promptly re-issuing GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas as a bundle on the Rockstar Store.
04:52Rockstar has since re-released the Trilogy to Steam, with plans to eventually bring the
04:56remasters to mobile platforms.
04:59It remains to be seen if these additions will be in better shape.
05:02Grand Theft Auto 6 is definitely on its way, but it's not entirely complete.
05:07As work continues on the highly anticipated sequel, some scammers have taken advantage
05:11of the hype by pretending to offer jobs working on Rockstar's upcoming projects.
05:16As a result, unsuspecting fans, no doubt eager to contribute to the next GTA game and other
05:21Rockstar titles, have fallen for phishing scams, perpetuated by phony recruiters and
05:26given out their private information.
05:28These fake recruitment ads were really ramping up in 2021, prompting Rockstar to issue a
05:33warning on social media.
05:35According to Rockstar's support page,
05:37"...Rockstar Games does not use instant messaging to contact prospective employees or conduct
05:42interviews.
05:43We never require prospective employees to send personal information or incur fees as
05:47part of our recruiting process."
05:49To combat these scams, Rockstar has asked anyone who's been impacted by one to contact
05:54the company immediately.