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Discussion GTA 6- I hope the protagonists don't have a "toxic relationship"

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SyphonFilta

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so as we probably all know GTA 6 will feature two protagonists. Lucia and Jason, and they are essentially a modern version of "Bonnie and Clyde"

one of the things i am hoping is that they arn't presented as a "toxic relationship/couple" would be kind of interesting to see a criminal couple played straight. I understand that it's a story and conflict is needed, but i really hope Rockstar is more creative in this regard. Rockstar has a tendency to kill off their past main characters in games, and I really hope the game doesn't end with one betraying or killing the other.

Both riding out and dying together, or them even "winning" at the end. Might be equally cliche as a betrayal, but more intriguing for me at least
 
They might go down in a blaze of glory together, but I highly doubt that their relationship will be free of toxicity during the story.
 
I’ve always found the narrative of GTA games to be derivative drivel, and a moral cesspool posing as “satire”. I guess it works for teenage boys or adults who never grew out of puberty. So to answer your question: it doesn’t really matter.
 
Arbitrary Function said:
I’ve always found the narrative of GTA games to be derivative drivel, and a moral cesspool posing as “satire”. I guess it works for teenage boys or adults who never grew out of puberty. So to answer your question: it doesn’t really matter.
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this is reductive garbage. I am neither a teenager or a boy and I find quite a bit to like about the narrative they present.
 
In a world where these people commit crimes and are under constant threat from police and rivals, I could not expect them have a perfectly normal relationship.

The amount of stress, fear and excitement means they would have to some extent let it out on each other.

I think it's normal in such situations to display egotistical behaviours and toxic elements.

It doesnt have to be a caricature though
 
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PixelKnight said:
I don’t really have any faith in GTA to be anything other than a playground for boys who think characters doing awful shit to other characters is hilarious.
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I'm guilty of finding the "yee yee a* haircut" scene hilarious, especially that it's what prompts the notification about barber shops.
 
GenOneCam said:
this too. please do tell me more about how I am a boy
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I didnt say that, please don’t put words in my mouth. I said who it was aimed at, and seeing as it’s a crime series going back nearly 30 years, and the last game came out in 2013 and was in development for many years before that, it’s target market being boys and young men is pretty evident, much the same for various other venerable IP like CoD. Of course out of however many tens of millions of people play it, they aren’t all boys/young men. The audience for console games has changed a lot over the years and I’m sure I play games that aren’t marketed squarely at me too. But GTA’s adolescent sense of humour, nihilism, violence, sexism and men doing awful things to people hasn’t changed much. I thought GTA was funny when I was a teenager. Now I just find it tired and cynical.
 
PixelKnight said:
I didnt say that, please don’t put words in my mouth. I said who it was aimed at, and seeing as it’s a crime series going back nearly 30 years, and the last game came out in 2013 and was in development for many years before that, it’s target market being boys and young men is pretty evident, much the same for various other venerable IP like CoD. Of course out of however many tens of millions of people play it, they aren’t all boys/young men. The audience for console games has changed a lot over the years and I’m sure I play games that aren’t marketed squarely at me too. But GTA’s adolescent sense of humour, nihilism, violence, sexism and men doing awful things to people hasn’t changed much.
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You did say that though. You said "GTA [is] a playground for boys who think characters doing awful shit to other characters is hilarious." GTA is not that. It is a crime drama with heavy satirical elements. It also happens to be made by one of the best studios in the industry at telling interesting and complex, character-driven stories. It's "target audience" is people who like that kind of story. So I enjoy that as a non-binary adult but I am apparently just an adolescent boy I guess.
 
GenOneCam said:
You did say that though. You said "GTA [is] a playground for boys who think characters doing awful shit to other characters is hilarious." GTA is not that. It is a crime drama with heavy satirical elements. It also happens to be made by one of the best studios in the industry at telling interesting and complex stories. It's "target audience" is people who like that kind of story. So I enjoy that as a non-binary adult but I am apparently just an adolescent boy I guess.
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No, I didn’t. The post you quoted twice was me saying who I perceive Rockstar to have made GTA for since the 1990s, that I have no faith in [the product] being anything other than a playground aimed at boys in the minds of their directors and marketing department. This is criticism of the developer. It was not me making a generalisation of who makes up the entirety of their massive total customer base that’s the size of a medium size country these days, which is why I said I play games aimed at people other than me too. We clearly disagree in who this perceived target market is if you think they are one of the best studios aiming at an audience wanting a well-written, complex and interesting crime drama and thus count yourself amongst the target market, but I think their writing and humour is childish, nihilistic violent nonsense aimed at the same audience as it was 25 years ago and it stopped being satire to keep leaning further into that a long time ago. That’s a considerable difference in perception.

There is a lot of media that has a diverse audience way beyond who it was originally made for. For example, something like Bluey, aimed at pre-schoolers and their parents to watch together but loved by people way beyond that for it’s wit and gentle wisdom. Tens of millions of people play and enjoy GTA and they obviously aren’t all boys. Just on raw numbers there’s going to be a huge diversity amongst CoD’s audience too, and I find that product similarly awful for different reasons. Personally, I don’t think much of Rockstar’s games or their storytelling at all. To me it’s just terrible childish imitations of far better crime dramas, with its original satire just becoming obvious tired jokes over time in the process. But that’s OK. To each their own, there’s plenty of games and films I love that are popular but I’m sure some others can’t stand for whatever reason and have no faith in it improving from their perspective either.
 
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PixelKnight said:
No, I didn’t. The post you quoted twice was me saying who I perceive Rockstar to have made GTA for since the 1990s, that I have no faith in [the product] being anything other than a playground aimed at boys in the minds of their directors and marketing department. This is criticism of the developer. It was not me making a generalisation of who makes up the entirety of their massive total customer base that’s the size of a medium size country these days, which is why I said I play games aimed at people other than me too. We clearly disagree in who this perceived target market is if you think they are one of the best studios aiming at an audience wanting a well-written, complex and interesting crime drama and thus count yourself amongst the target market, but I think their writing and humour is childish, nihilistic violent nonsense aimed at the same audience as it was 25 years ago and it stopped being satire to keep leaning further into that a long time ago. That’s a considerable difference in perception.

There is a lot of media that has a diverse audience way beyond who it was originally made for. For example, something like Bluey, aimed at pre-schoolers and their parents to watch together but loved by people way beyond that for it’s wit and gentle wisdom. Tens of millions of people play and enjoy GTA and they obviously aren’t all boys. Just on raw numbers there’s going to be a huge diversity amongst CoD’s audience too, and I find that product similarly awful for different reasons. Personally, I don’t think much of Rockstar’s games or their storytelling at all. To me it’s just terrible childish imitations of far better crime dramas, with its original satire just becoming obvious tired jokes over time in the process. But that’s OK. To each their own, there’s plenty of games and films I love that are popular but I’m sure some others can’t stand for whatever reason and have no faith in it improving from their perspective either.
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Red Dead Redemption 2 disagrees with you as that is a superb narrative and has one of the best protagonists in gaming history. Rockstar can write a serious narrative when they want to, but GTA generally has a certain tone, but you are being quite reductive in general.

It doesn't match up to "far better crime dramas" which I am assuming you are comparing them to novels and movies which doesn't seem fair. That's like saying "The Last of Us is a good story for a game but it doesn't match up to superior post-apocalyptic works like The Road"

I do hope that Rockstar takes a more serious approach like GTA 4 and RDR 2. GTA is never going to be a super serious story though... It would clash with the absolute freedom they give you in free roam.

Also P.S, complaining about violence and nihilism in a crime game is weird as hell lol
 
Red Dead 2 has one of the best stories and some
Of the best writing I've ever experienced in a video game. I have high hopes for gta 6
 
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SyphonFilta said:
Also P.S, complaining about violence and nihilism in a crime game is weird as hell lol
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Nah. Not realising that you can tell an interesting crime drama without it being full of remorseless sociopaths and mass murder is weird as hell, and it’s why GTA sits in that dissonance zone of serving up ‘here’s your characters. They are all complete irredeemable assholes. Don’t forget to laugh at all the jokes about the people who get hurt along the way’.

Red Dead I find way better as it’s take on westerns and the inherent genre tropes therein is a lot more interesting, and so is the lead character. But GTA was just childish edgy stuff at its inception 25 years back, and really hasn’t changed other than the jokes seeming less subversive and more just tired as the decades have rolled by.
 
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SyphonFilta said:
G5h0MB0.jpeg

so as we probably all know GTA 6 will feature two protagonists. Lucia and Jason, and they are essentially a modern version of "Bonnie and Clyde"

one of the things i am hoping is that they arn't presented as a "toxic relationship/couple" would be kind of interesting to see a criminal couple played straight. I understand that it's a story and conflict is needed, but i really hope Rockstar is more creative in this regard. Rockstar has a tendency to kill off their past main characters in games, and I really hope the game doesn't end with one betraying or killing the other.

Both riding out and dying together, or them even "winning" at the end. Might be equally cliche as a betrayal, but more intriguing for me at least
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Agreed, them not breaking up is the more interesting route to go down.

Like others said I hope the main story is a bit more serious than GTA5.
 
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PixelKnight said:
Nah. Not realising that you can tell an interesting crime drama without it being full of remorseless sociopaths and mass murder is weird as hell, and it’s why GTA sits in that dissonance zone of ‘here’s your characters. They are all complete irredeemable assholes. Don’t forget to laugh at all the jokes about the people who get hurt along the way’.
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GTA is not attempting a serious crime narrative. That has never been Rockstar's approach with the series

GTA was created to be a British parody of Americana, that's its origin point. They are not trying to tell The Godfather or Thief or Heat

GTA 4 was probably their biggest attempt at a serious narrative in the series. Also how can you not find anything interesting about Niko Bellic, a child soldier in Yugoslavia who witnessed his entire village massacred and his best friends killed. Seems quite like a tragic character and not a nihilist sociopath like you are describing
 
SyphonFilta said:
GTA is not attempting a serious crime narrative. That has never been Rockstar's approach with the series

GTA was created to be a British parody of Americana, that's its origin point. They are not trying to tell The Godfather or Thief or Heat

GTA 4 was probably their biggest attempt at a serious narrative in the series. Also how can you not find anything interesting about Niko Bellic, a child soldier in Yugoslavia who witnessed his entire village massacred and his best friends killed. Seems quite like a tragic character and not a nihilist sociopath like you are describing
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I’m aware of this. I was arguing with someone who described it as “a crime drama with heavy satirical elements. It also happens to be made by one of the best studios in the industry at telling interesting and complex stories.” My point is that it stopped being a decent parody a while ago, and has ended up just retelling the same jokes that now feel tired. Yes, there’s the odd interesting point in dozens of hours of material. You can say that about pretty much anything with how long and big open world games are, but a character can have a tragic backstory given to them to garner sympathy while also being a sociopath in a wider story that’s gleefully nihilistic (on the part of the writers). The background of a character and the overall tone of a game aren’t necessarily the same thing.
 
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I have zero faith in GTA6 to tell a compelling story or feature characters that aren't The Worst. It's going to be more of the same shit dressed up in low-brow satire of the U.S. that wouldn't even make the cut in a later-season episode of South Park.
 
Hailinel said:
I have zero faith in GTA6 to tell a compelling story or feature characters that aren't The Worst. It's going to be more of the same shit dressed up in low-brow satire of the U.S. that wouldn't even make the cut in a later-season episode of South Park.
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have you played Red Dead Redemption 2?
 
I have a feeling how their relationship will be totally upto us how we want it to be. They could be a healthy couple, toxic lovers, exes or simply just friends depending on the narrative we choose throughout the entire story so they can make their games feel a little less unidirectional.

Edit: I personally think Rockstar will ace the story aspect this time around. GTA V lacking a strong story development was one of the very few points it got hate for from the fans.
 
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