Top 10 Grand Theft Auto Facts

Top 10 Facts About Grand Theft Auto

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It's one of the best and most popular video game series’ of all time, and it’s just as fascinating behind the scenes. Welcome to Watchmojo.com, and today we're counting down our picks for the top ten facts about the Grand Theft Auto series. For this list, we're looking at what we consider to be the most interesting and most eye-opening facts about the popular video game series, whether it be about the series as a whole, or just a neat tidbit about one facet of a particular game.

#10: Everyone’s sick today?

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Every time a popular new video game is released, there's bound to be a few, um, “sick” employees. However, the release of “Grand Theft Auto V” was something else entirely. A whole buttload of unofficial polls and articles reported that many people we’re planning to take off work or call in sick the day that GTAV dropped. Whether or not this is entirely true is debatable, but we’re confident that you if look up the records from various companies and organizations, you’ll find a definite spike in time off recorded on that fateful day.

#9: You look familiar.

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It's no surprise that the GTA series takes heavy inspiration from Hollywood, like “Vice City” basically being a video game version of “Scarface,” but it gets more intimate than that. Rockstar bases a lot of their characters off of celebrities. For example, Niko, the protagonist of “GTA IV,” is heavily influenced by Vladimir Mashkov’s character Sasha from “Behind Enemy Lines,” and Mashkov was even asked by Rockstar to provide Niko's voice, but he declined. Furthermore, “San Andreas” characters Ryder and OG Loc are almost exact replicas of rappers Eazy-E and Ja Rule, respectively.

Weight fluctuations are normal occurrences for Hollywood actors. Just look at Christian Bale. That man cannot be healthy. However, Ned Luke, the actor who portrayed protagonist Michael De Santa in “GTA V,” is the only video game actor to put on weight for a motion capture role. In order to fully comprehend the character of Michael and to provide an easier, more realistic motion capture experience, Luke gained twenty five extra pounds of chub. At least it was all worth it, as he gave us a fascinating character and had fun in the process.

You think writing for video games is easy? Probably not, but if you did, think again. Not only do the writers have to create the immense main storylines, they also have to provide alternate lines for failed missions, the funny and diverse radio banter, and random pedestrian dialogue. This resulted in “Grand Theft Auto IV” having over 80,000 lines of dialogue, and if you think that's a lot, “GTA V” almost doubles it, as it neared very close to 160,000. To call these writers talented and hardworking is a gross understatement.

#6: A Lawsuit from you, and you, and you.

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Unless you've been living under a rock, you've heard about the Grand Theft Auto series, even if you’re not a gamer. And that probably stems from the fact that the series is in the news practically every other week regarding a new lawsuit. These come from a large variety of cases, like “Mob Wives” star Karen Gravano suing for $40 million, claiming that Rockstar stole her likeness and life story, and a lawsuit against “Vice City” claiming that it caused teenager Devin Moore to kill three Alabama police officers. All of this has apparently added up to an accumulated Billion dollars worth of lawsuits – that’s a lot of coin…

While it's fun to envision a group of creative intellectuals thinking up this controversial and influential series, the reality is even more exciting. Rockstar was developing a game called Race’n’Chase, which was basically a video game version of Cops n’ Robbers, with the player taking either side. However, a glitch caused the police to become wildly aggressive. Testers found this glitch more fun than the core game, so Rockstar tweaked the concept, erased the option of playing as the police, renamed the game to “Grand Theft Auto,” and made video game history in the process.

#4: Massive Development Budgets

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Obviously GTA 5 is an enormous game that would have taken a lot of time and money to put together. How much you say? Well including its marketing campaign: The final costs came to a total of $265 million. When not adjusting for inflation that makes it the most expensive game budget to date. Only three movies have ever cost more produce. “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” holds the record for the most expensive movie ever at $378.5 million, and its prequel, “At World's End,” holds second with $300 million. “Avengers: Age of Ulton” narrowly beats out the game to hold third place with $280 million going towards it – but if you ever needed proof of how big a business games have become, this is it.

It's no secret that Grand Theft Auto is one of the most popular series’ of all time. However, it's unbelievable to see just how massive it really is. While Rockstar has never posted the exact sales figures, as of February 2016 they have shipped over 235 million copies, making it the 4th biggest video game franchise of all time. Not only that, but “GTA V” broke six sales records upon release, including fastest selling video game in 24 hours, and even the coveted fastest entertainment property to gross $1 billion, which it accomplished in just three days. Guess those lawsuits will be fine after all.

While the GTA series spans different time periods and locations, radio DJ Lazlow Jones is the only character to appear in every 3D rendition of the series. Lazlow is known as the host of the Sirius XM talk show “Technofile,” but he also makes appearances as himself throughout the games, just as Phil Collins did in “Vice City Stories.” His voice appears on various radio channels from 2001’s “GTA III” all the way through to 2008’s “GTA IV” before making his first on-screen appearance in “V” as the host of the fictional Fame or Shame. Before we get to our best fact, here are a few honorable mentions. Shooting the Moon does this Rips on the “Driver” Series Only Two Children Characters

#1: The Hot Coffee Debacle

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When hackers discovered an unfinished sex minigame in GTA: San Andreas source code, they released the Hot Coffee Mod on PC, which allowed players to access this sexy mode. However when word got out about the unused assets hidden away in the PS2 and Xbox versions of the game, all hell broke loose. The game’s rating was changed from an M to an AO rating, forcing Rockstar to recall of the game and pull it off the shelves. They also faced class action lawsuits from parents, advocates and politicians, which ended up costing Rockstar’s parent company Take-Two Interactive over $20 Million. It was a PR and financial nightmare in every sense of the word – but when it comes to sexy times, any publicity is good publicity. Do you agree with our list? Do you know any fun facts about the GTA series? For more informational top tens published every day, be sure to subscribe to Watchmojo.com.