One of the most anticipated video games of perhaps the last decade is dropping on Thursday. 

Grand Theft Auto VI (aka GTA 6) will finally be released 13 years after its predecessor. 

If you’ve never heard of GTA, not to worry, because in true TDA fashion, we’re about to go over everything you need to know ahead of the biggest pop culture event of the year.

Let’s steal a car, buckle up, and cruise into Vice City!

Grand Theft Auto is a video game series made by Rockstar Games. Since the first game was released in 1997, players have been able to explore huge open worlds based on real U.S. cities.

Players can follow the main story, take on side missions or simply roam the map, and almost all of it involves crime.

The games are known for their satire of American culture (think parodies of podcast bros, conspiracy theorists and gun culture), their soundtracks, and their controversy (more on that later).

GTA 6 is set in Leonida, based on the U.S. state of Florida, and its centrepiece is Vice City, based on the U.S. city Miami. It follows a Bonnie and Clyde-style couple caught up in a criminal conspiracy after a robbery goes wrong.

How do we know GTA 6 is one of the most anticipated games in recent times? Well, because of years of hype within the gaming community!

But there are also record-breaking numbers to back up the claim. It’s difficult to include all the records that have been broken without going over my prescribed word limit (sorry, editor Emma) but I’ll try my best.

The first GTA 6 trailer (which dropped all the way back in 2023) was viewed over 90 million times in its first day, making it the most-viewed video game trailer on YouTube in its first 24 hours. Its second trailer racked up more than 475 million views in 24 hours, a Guinness World Record.

How does this translate into sales? From presales alone, GTA 6 has already solidified its status as a revenue juggernaut. According to analytics firm Sensor Tower, GTA 6 has a record-breaking 11.27 million pre-orders, worth $US1.1 billion ($AU1.6 billion) as of 13 November.

In its first week alone, games market research firm Newzoo estimates the game could make up to $US5.2 billion ($AU7.6 billion) in sales. For reference, Avengers: Endgame (the highest-grossing movie of all time) made $US2.9 billion ($AU4.3 billion) and Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour (the highest-grossing tour of all time) made $US2.1 billion ($AU3.0 billion) in total.

To understand the hype behind the global phenomenon, I spoke to Gus of the video game talk show Back Pocket and Dr James Birt, an Associate Professor of Film, Screen and Creative Media at Bond University.

Birt said people play GTA for different reasons, and its success stems from that broad appeal.

“You can head off to do a mission, get distracted and spend the next three hours doing something completely different,” he said.

He also pointed to the game’s enormous existing audience. GTA 5 sold nearly 235 million copies, generating billions of dollars.

Gus from Back Pocket called the mix of cutting-edge tech, freedom, great stories and anti-heroes “a perfect storm”.

But with so much hype, Gus warns: “People’s expectations will always be higher than the game can probably deliver.” 

Gus also mentioned the risks of technical issues, like bugs or launch-day delays. Millions of people trying to download the game at once could cause PlayStation and Xbox’s online stores to crash.

The series has not been without its share of controversies.

Violence, sex and drugs are all consistent themes across the franchise, and several earlier games were censored or banned in Australia. While the latest instalment is rated R18+ in Australia, the series’ popularity means children and teenagers are likely to come across it, whether by using an older sibling’s account or watching gameplay online. (Side note: I am neither confirming nor denying that I played earlier GTA games as a 12-year-old.)

Birt noted that while he is an avid gamer with a long history of playing GTA, he is also a father of two and is conscious of the game’s violence and sexual themes. He said he needs to think about “what my children play, what they watch online and the conversations we have about it”.

Do the controversies and violence matter? Gus likens the series to “a really good crime movie” made for mature audiences, adding that we’ve become “accustomed to seeing that in our fiction”. 

But not everyone sees it that way. Outside the game, the franchise’s violent content has led to GTA being blamed in lawsuits for real-world murders and shootings. None of the cases succeeded. The American Psychological Association has also said there is insufficient evidence to link violent video games to real-world violence, although it does note a link to increased aggression.

Despite the controversies, GTA 6 is expected to have a tangible impact not only on culture, but on global economies. 

Gus predicts GTA 6 will bring work to a halt on the game’s release day – 19 November. He expects “a slowdown in the world’s economy for 24 to 48 hours”, and there’s some data to back up the buzz.

HR platform Employment Hero says annual leave bookings for 19 November are up 29% compared to the same Thursday last year, with bookings among men aged 18 to 44 up 84%. 

U.S. platform BambooHR found leave requests for launch day were 13% higher than usual. And these aren’t even counting the “sick” leave people might claim closer to the date!

Headlines have gone further, with widely shared estimates claiming the launch could cost the U.S. economy $US 1 billion ($AU1.5 billion) and Australia $70 million in lost productivity. 

So, that’s our deep dive on GTA! Now that you know everything there is to know, will you be playing on launch day?

Don’t worry, I won’t tell! Anyone else feeling a bit of a cough coming on?

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Consider it attention well spent.