Today Twitter UK told the lot of us what we already know. Grand Theft Auto 5 has been mentioned over 2 million times over the past 24 hours! I’m not a big fan of the GTA series, but I just can’t escape the influence of its power.
Grand Theft Auto 5 has been available to play for less than one day and the explosion of people talking about it has surely doubled, if not tripled, since Twitter UK’s initial tweet. There are glowing reviews and people that are just sick and tired of all the hype, but it’s good information to say the least. Twitter and social media sites can give the public more information than traditional routes of releasing game information through local businesses like the old days.
Over the past 24 hours, there have been more than two million mentions of Grand Theft Auto V on Twitter. #GTAV #GTA5
— Twitter UK (@TwitterUK) September 17, 2013
Rockstar Games must have one heck of a marketing team in order to get their game trending worldwide in less than 12 hours. It also doesn’t hurt that GTA, love it or hate it, has been one of the most controversial and successful franchises of all time so it had a huge following going into release day.
With success comes responsibility
I’m not talking about the game’s responsibility but rather the responsibility that news stations think games have in violence. Already today I have seen stories about certain violent acts being chalked up to GTA’s release only because coincidentally, the violence took place today. Two men were mugged here in Baltimore today, and they say it’s because of the game. I have two questions for those reporters: since when hasn’t someone living in a city had the risk of getting hurt? And what about all the violence before video games even existed? Anyways I won’t get into another long discussion about the correlation between violence and video games.
Grand Theft Auto 5 is out now with what look like incredible reviews from fans and industry professionals alike. Do you have the game? Do you think it deserves all the attention it has been getting?
