rockstar had to fight to get people to care about gta 3 at e3, now gta 6 is the most anticipated game of the generation

Read a piece on GamesRadar about a former Rockstar lead talking about the old days. Apparently when they were showing GTA 3 at E3, they had to fight to get people to care. The previews at the time were fairly positive, but the general buzz wasn't there yet. Nobody really knew what a 3D open world crime game could be.

Now GTA 6 is the most anticipated game of the generation. It's wild to think about that shift. Rockstar went from having to convince people to give their weird top-down series a chance in 3D, to a situation where a single trailer breaks the internet and an extended look gets a Netflix premiere slot.

I remember reading old E3 coverage and thinking the same thing. GTA 3 looked rough around the edges, and the idea of a living city was hard to sell in screenshots. The former lead's comments line up with that. The previews were decent, but the hype machine wasn't automatic.

Now we're a few months out from GTA 6 and the anticipation is unreal. Every tiny detail gets dissected. People are planning blackouts, pre-ordering, arguing about $80 price tags. Rockstar doesn't have to fight for attention anymore, they have to manage it.

It's a good reminder that even the biggest franchises started somewhere. GTA 3 was the one that changed everything, and at the time it wasn't a guaranteed hit. The fact that the previews were fairly positive but the team still had to push hard says a lot about how different the industry was.

Anyway, just thought it was an interesting bit of history. Makes me appreciate how far the series has come.

Source: GamesRadar+ · Curated content.

Wild to think about. Back then Rockstar was begging people to look at Portland's grid. Now we're parsing frames for Mount Kalaga's ridgeline and the Grassrivers delta. The scale jump from GTA V's Los Santos to Leonida's full state (with compass-spanning biomes) is staggering.