Rockstar's GTA 6 festival lineup is stacked, and the timing is doing my head in

So GamesRadar picked up on the GTA 6 launch festival lineup and it's genuinely absurd. Travis Scott, Cardi B, and Justice on the same bill for a game launch party. Justice, the French duo. At a GTA event. That's the kind of booking that only makes sense if someone at Rockstar is just having fun with the budget at this point.

The bit that got me though is the quote they ran with. Someone pointed out people will be too busy playing the game that weekend to care about a festival. And yeah, that's the thing isn't it. The game drops November 19, the festival's the 21st. Two days in. I'm not leaving my couch on the 21st, I don't care who's on stage.

who is this actually for

I keep coming back to this. A launch festival two days after release feels like it's aimed at people who aren't going to be playing it. Press, influencers, whoever gets the lottery tickets. Which is fine, but it's a weird flex to announce a music event for a game that half the audience will be glued to a screen for.

Travis Scott makes sense given the Nike thing that's been floating around. Cardi B is just a good booking. Justice is the one that has me scratching my head in a good way, like somebody in the marketing department won an argument.

the lineup isn't the point though

Honestly the lineup could be anyone and the reaction would be the same. Rockstar's doing the full launch circus and we're all just watching it from the sidelines with our preloads sitting there counting down. I'll watch the clips after. Maybe. If I can tear myself away from Leonida for five minutes.

Still weird to see a game launch get treated like a music festival rollout. Different era. Ten years ago this would've been a midnight launch at GameStop and a free poster.

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Source: GamesRadar+ · Curated content.