GTA games have offered players the opportunity to indulge themselves in a fantastic gameworld where they can virtually 'live the dream'
The style of the game design and the nature of the gameplay in this first game they have very little relation to the 3 dimensional fully interactive immersive worlds to which we have grown accustomed to.
The development of the games and there ability to construct a greater sense of a fully grounded game world and an immersive playing environment also mark the development in console technology.
Distribution
This is the first GTA game in the series to be released on dual platforms as the deal between sony and rockstar expired due to the migration of the next-gen consoles
The game was released on april 29th 2008 of GTA IV on both the xbox 360 and the PS3.
On its first day of release in britain 609,000 copies were sold bringing in a revenue of £24.4 million. In that single day it recouped around half of its production budget (estimated at £50 million).
Marketing
Since its release at the end of April it has grabbed acres of of newspaper space in both the gaming and non-gaming press.
On sunday. may 4th, The Observer newspaper dedicated a page of its 'Art's and culture review' section to debating whether or not GTA IV is a work of art.
It looks as if GTA IV has arrived at a tipping point where everyone know about the game, whether or not they know much about its content. In short, GTA IV has attained celebrity status.
Consumption
GTA IV has achieved a similar status, and within 24 hours of its release established itself with a status of a ''Must play'' game.
Male and female students xbox 360 owners and ps3 owners, all united by the experiences that they had from playing GTA IV.
Many of the game players are under 18 so this brings the question of the classification system and its effectiveness!
