Grand Theft Auto Research Articles

Digital Games and The City: About Reality, Commuting and Gamification

This paper is part of a research on gaming and reality carried out by the Laboratório de Poéticas Fronteiriças, a research group rolled on the CNPq’s directory and certified by the UEMG (Brazil). Growing number of phone programs that provide ride-share services, transportation, or product delivery, primarily food, remind us of old games that use similar mechanisms. Our aim is to analyze the games series Crazy Taxi and Grand Theft Auto, their narrative and aesthetic elements as well as similarities to the Uber app in order to better understand ways the gamification of such types of apps can allow a re-signification of the city spaces, its users as players and of its socio-economic impact.

THE SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDY OF TABOO WORDS IN GRAND THEFT AUTO V PROLOGUE STORY MISSION

This research objective is to find out what types of taboo words and function used in the game Grand Theft Auto V. This research use theory based on Battistella’s theory on taboo words types, Wardhaugh’s theory on the function of taboo words and to bridge between types and function using Lyon’s theory on contextual analysis. The researcher found that the character in this game tend to use obscenity (48.57%) on types of taboo words and draw attention (48.57%) as the function of taboo words.

Racial Stereotypes in the Grand Theft Auto Franchise

Racial Stereotypes in the Grand Theft Auto Franchise

Range-Intensity-Profile-Guided Gated Light Ranging and Imaging Based on a Convolutional Neural Network.

Three-dimensional (3D) range-gated imaging can obtain high spatial resolution intensity images as well as pixel-wise depth information. Several algorithms have been developed to recover depth from gated images such as the range-intensity correlation algorithm and deep-learning-based algorithm. The traditional range-intensity correlation algorithm requires specific range-intensity profiles, which are hard to generate, while the existing deep-learning-based algorithm requires large number of real-scene training data. In this work, we propose a method of range-intensity-profile-guided gated light ranging and imaging to recover depth from gated images based on a convolutional neural network. In this method, the range-intensity profile (RIP) of a given gated light ranging and imaging system is obtained to generate synthetic training data from Grand Theft Auto V for our range-intensity ratio and semantic network (RIRS-net). The RIRS-net is mainly trained on synthetic data and fine-tuned with RIP data. The network learns both semantic depth cues and range-intensity depth cues in the synthetic data, and learns accurate range-intensity depth cues in the RIP data. In the evaluation experiments on both a real-scene and synthetic test dataset, our method shows a better result compared to other algorithms.

Doing Nothing in San Andreas: Contesting the Value of Play in Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto V

ABSTRACT: Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto franchise continues to receive critical acclaim for its open-world structure that invites emergent forms of play. The live service monetization of Grand Theft Auto V , however, confers a monetary value on in-game items and activities, which fundamentally alters the playspace and recontextualizes discussions of player agency within the attention economy. This essay explores legitimate and illegitimate techniques players developed for earning in-game currency and rebalancing the game’s economy in their favor. In doing so, it reflects on the implication of these practices for our understanding of an implied player role and the significance of transgressive play.

Video gaming industry in the US

Generations after generations, the entertainment industry evolved multiple folds, be it music, be it movies, be it sports, be it video games. Each industry doesn’t only set trends each decade but also changes peoples’ lifestyle. Video games are something which is involved almost in every person’s life. Some people play them when they’re young, some play in their teens, some play after they come home from office and some play after they retire. The video games were simply designed simulations that was started in 1950’s and 1960’s by computer scientists on the early computers. In 1952, British professor A.S. Douglas created OXO, also known as noughts and crosses or tic-tac-toe, as part of his doctoral dissertation at the University of Cambridge. In 1958, physicist William Higinbotham developed “Tennis for Two” on a large analog computer and connected oscilloscope screen. In 1962, Steve Russell at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) invented Spacewar! a computer-based space combat video game. It ran on the Programmed Data Processor-1 (PDP-1), a cutting-edge computer primarily found at universities. Spacewar! was the first video game that could be played on multiple computer installations. In 1967, Ralph Baer and his team at Sanders Associates, Inc., created a prototype multiplayer, multi-program video game system that could be played on a television. Known as “The Brown Box,” this invention led to the release of the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972, the first video game home console. In 1977, Atari launched the Atari 2600 (also known as the Video Computer System). This home console featured joysticks and interchangeable game cartridges, marking the beginning of the second generation of video game consoles. In 2023, the gaming industry reportedly earns more than film industry and music industry combined which is around $249.60 billion. According to a report by SuperData Research, the global gaming market was valued at $159.3 billion in 2020 and is estimated to reach $268.8 billion by 2025. This is already over three times the revenue of music industry and film industry combined. [2] The 2024 global video game market's projected value of $179.1 billion, with a healthy 6.4% CAGR, bodes well for the US industry. As a key player, the US drives this growth through successful titles like Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto. A mobile gaming market experiencing significant growth and innovation, led by companies like Zynga, strengthens its longstanding dominance in the international arena. This success attracts international investment and talent, promoting innovation and pushing the industry forward.

Living the American Dream: Playlist GTA in the Third World Country

AbstractThis research critically examines the nexus between video games, specifically the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) series, and the nuanced perceptions of the American Dream among teenagers in developing nations, primarily focusing on India. Situated within the broader exploration of the American Dream across academic disciplines, my qualitative research employs semi‐structured interviews and online surveys. Targeting participants aged 13 to 22 with extensive GTA exposure, my purposive sampling strategy ensures diverse perspectives. Thematic analysis of game content, encompassing narratives, characters, and themes, serves as the methodological core. Adopting a case study approach, this study aims to investigate the influence of the GTA game series on teenagers from developing nations, particularly India, and how it shapes their perception of the American Dream.

Aestheticization of radio and its role in the construction of the world in Grand Theft Auto

According to Wolfgang Welsch, the human environment is subject to aestheticization, or ‘embellishment and styling’, to make it more pleasant to perceive and participate. This cultural trend is reflected most strikingly in contemporary media forms. Radio aestheticization concerns both the arrangement (structure) of programme content and the stylistics of the said content in order to make other media forms, like video games, compelling, immersive and interactive. In the popular video game series Grand Theft Auto (GTA hereafter), the player character can choose to listen to a variety of radio stations while driving. This article argues that the aestheticization of radio in GTA does not merely provide an enjoyable audial background but also co-creates the world of the game by interacting with players’ actions through the broadcast content and building the ambience of the world of the game through the style of this content. The programme flow, as a system of words and sounds, co-operates with the game system, increasing the players’ involvement with the game (the sense of play) and the aural specification of the game world (the sense of place).

The Authority of the Classification Committee in the Conformity Test of the Online Game "Grand Theft Auto V" Based on the Minister of Communication and Information Regulation Number 11 of 2016 concerning Classification of Electronic Interactive Games

The Authority of the Classification Committee in the Conformity Test of the Online Game "Grand Theft Auto V" Based on the Minister of Communication and Information Regulation Number 11 of 2016 concerning Classification of Electronic Interactive Games

Intelligent Complementary Multi-Modal Fusion for Anomaly Surveillance and Security System.

Recently, security monitoring facilities have mainly adopted artificial intelligence (AI) technology to provide both increased security and improved performance. However, there are technical challenges in the pursuit of elevating system performance, automation, and security efficiency. In this paper, we proposed intelligent anomaly detection and classification based on deep learning (DL) using multi-modal fusion. To verify the method, we combined two DL-based schemes, such as (i) the 3D Convolutional AutoEncoder (3D-AE) for anomaly detection and (ii) the SlowFast neural network for anomaly classification. The 3D-AE can detect occurrence points of abnormal events and generate regions of interest (ROI) by the points. The SlowFast model can classify abnormal events using the ROI. These multi-modal approaches can complement weaknesses and leverage strengths in the existing security system. To enhance anomaly learning effectiveness, we also attempted to create a new dataset using the virtual environment in Grand Theft Auto 5 (GTA5). The dataset consists of 400 abnormal-state data and 78 normal-state data with clip sizes in the 8-20 s range. Virtual data collection can also supplement the original dataset, as replicating abnormal states in the real world is challenging. Consequently, the proposed method can achieve a classification accuracy of 85%, which is higher compared to the 77.5% accuracy achieved when only employing the single classification model. Furthermore, we validated the trained model with the GTA dataset by using a real-world assault class dataset, consisting of 1300 instances that we reproduced. As a result, 1100 data as the assault were classified and achieved 83.5% accuracy. This also shows that the proposed method can provide high performance in real-world environments.

Como as marcas utilizam a publicidade in game no jogo Grand Theft Auto

This article aims to present a study on the insertion of advertising practices in digital games, this being within the servers of the game Grand Theft Auto Roleplay (called GTA RP), an illegitimate modification of the game Grand Theft Auto V by the developer Rockstar Games. It is worth mentioning that GTA RP is nothing more than a base platform for GTA V, which supports a large number of players simultaneously and allows partial customizations in the game map, in which the brands that we will discuss used this resource to carry out activations at the along the Cidade Alta server, this being a kind of functional city in satire of the real world. In addition, more than identifying the brands in the game, the study seeks to verify the ad formats and their possible impacts on the player's perception of such brands presented within this universe. In short, it is understood that digital games have been an important media channel in our society, capable of reaching new consumer niches, in which brands were able to visualize in their structure countless possibilities for the insertion of advertising messages.

Grand Theft Auto-Based Cycling Simulator for Cognitive Enhancement Technologies in Dangerous Traffic Situations.

While developing traffic-based cognitive enhancement technology (CET), such as bike accident prevention systems, it can be challenging to test and evaluate them properly. After all, the real-world scenario could endanger the subjects' health and safety. Therefore, a simulator is needed, preferably one that is realistic yet low cost. This paper introduces a way to use the video game Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V) and its sophisticated traffic system as a base to create such a simulator, allowing for the safe and realistic testing of dangerous traffic situations involving cyclists, cars, and trucks. The open world of GTA V, which can be explored on foot and via various vehicles, serves as an immersive stand-in for the real world. Custom modification scripts of the game give the researchers control over the experiment scenario and the output data to be evaluated. An off-the-shelf bicycle equipped with three sensors serves as a realistic input device for the subject's movement direction and speed. The simulator was used to test two early-stage CET concepts enabling cyclists to sense dangerous traffic situations, such as trucks approaching from behind the cyclist. Thus, this paper also presents the user evaluation of the cycling simulator and the CET used by the subjects to sense dangerous traffic situations. With the knowledge of the first iteration of the user-centered design (UCD) process, this paper concludes by naming improvements for the cycling simulator and discussing further research directions for CET that enable users to sense dangerous situations better.

Grand Theft Heutagogy: A Reflection on the Utilization of Video Games as a Teaching Tool in the Lecture Theatre

This paper explores the utilization of the video game Grand Theft Auto as a unique tool within the lecture theatre to develop contemporary heutagogy. Drawing upon the authors’ personal reflections in the form of an autoethnographic account across a four year period, the challenges and benefits of utilizing the approach within in-person and virtual learning environments is interrogated. Utilizing video games as a means to ensure students are active participants whilst learning complex theoretical paradigms has proven highly beneficial, aiding in the reduction of attainment gaps and wider barriers to learning. So too, the approach has enabled cohorts to disentangle criminological problems whilst being empowered to question the nature of public criminology within contemporary discourse. Active engagement with video games whilst in the lecture theatre, by both students and lecturers, has enabled a dynamic and inclusive learning environment.

”You do it for the good times”: rival feminist readings of torture and kink in Grand Theft Auto V

ABSTRACT The inclusion of a graphic, interactive torture mission in the video game Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V) attracted considerable criticism. I conduct a close reading the infamous torture mission, using two analytical archetypes: the feminist killjoy and the kinky brat. First, embodying the feminist killjoy, I argue that the torture mission in GTA V is a performance of power that naturalizes American imperialism and constructs Muslim bodies as sexually deviant and thus deserving of torture. Second, embodying the kinky brat, I argue that a kink-based analysis moves us away from understanding the mission as only a power fantasy. It helps reveal players’ vulnerability to the bodies at play, explore the messy and contingent affects that play produces, and unpack taken-for-granted assumptions about this controversial mission. This analysis is purposefully ambivalent. Following Sedgwick, I argue that each archetype knows some things about the mission well, and some things poorly. However, both the feminist killjoy and the kinky brat refute the claim that violent play is “just a game,” pointing instead to the interconnection between play and “real life.”

Dissociable effects of acute versus cumulative violent video game exposure on the action simulation circuit in university students

ABSTRACT There is an ongoing debate as to whether violent video game exposure (VGE) has a negative impact on social functioning. This debate continues in part because of methodological concerns and the paucity of identifiable neurocognitive mechanisms. Also, little attention has been given to how specific personality characteristics may influence susceptibility to the purported effects. Using a combined experimental and cross-sectional approach, we examined the impact of VGE on action simulation as a function of trait coldheartedness in a sample of university students. Healthy adults played a violent or nonviolent version of Grand Theft Auto V before completing an fMRI measure of action simulation circuit (ASC) activity. Simulation-related activity was not significantly different between groups; however, greater overall activation was observed in left inferior frontal gyrus for those in the violent condition. Contrary to predictions, no evidence was observed that trait coldheartedness significantly interacts with violent gaming to influence ASC activation. However, prior cumulative VGE was negatively correlated with simulation-related activity in a subsection of the ASC. This study highlights a potential dissociation between the effects of acute versus cumulative violent gaming and may challenge assumptions that the directionality of effects for cross-sectional associations always mirror those of acute exposure.

Translation of the fictional world realities when translating video games in the genre of interactive movie

This article is devoted to the study of the translation features of the realities of the video game “Grand Theft Auto”. Within the article the study of the features of video games of the interactive movie genre is carried out, the distinctive features of video games of this genre are represented and the points of researchers’ view on realities in modern linguistics are considered. In the article the selected realities are subdivided into geographical, ethnographic and socio-political according to the classification of S. Vlakhov and S. Florin. In each of the selected groups the ways of realities translation into Russian is considered, the most productive ways of realities translation are highlighted.

After agency: The queer posthumanism of video games that cannot be played

This article offers a queer reading of Brent Watanabe’s 2016 video game–based art piece San Andreas Deer Cam, a mod of Grand Theft Auto V in which a computer-controlled deer wanders the game’s extensive open world. During the time that San Andreas Deer Cam was streamed live on Twitch, it became something of an internet sensation, drawing attention for its comedic elements and the deer’s seeming invisibility. I argue here that Watanabe’s piece can read in an alternative way: as a work of queer posthumanism. Drawing from game studies scholars whose research explores the non-human (such as Alenda Chang and Paolo Ruffino), as well as queer studies scholars who have theorized how posthumanism challenges norms of gender, sexuality, and intimacy (such as Dana Luciano and Mel Chen), I analyze video recordings of San Andreas Deer Cam. Through these videos, I articulate the piece’s posthumanist elements, with a focus on the implications of Watanabe’s choice to make the game unplayable and the powerful yet ambivalent picture the piece offers of queerness ‘beyond the human’. In San Andreas Deer Cam, queerness manifests in many forms, all of them wrapped up with the messy divide between peoples, animals, and machines: the visual erotics of the deer sensuously rendered backside, moments of sexual misrecognition as non-player characters appear to catcall the deer, even a prolonged scene in which the deer becomes the object of homophobic violence. Ultimately, I conclude, San Andreas Deer Cam offers a model for how video games themselves can be used to rethink the centrality of human agency, which has long been considered the defining feature of the medium. Watanabe’s piece serves as a provocation to consider the queer potential of games that are unplayable and of refusing – rather than doggedly pursuing – the supposed capacity of video games to place human players in control.

From virtual to actual destinations: do interactions with others, emotional solidarity, and destination image in online games influence willingness to travel?

ABSTRACT The line between fantasy and reality has become blurred in online gaming, whereby tourists are willing to visit associated real-world destinations they have experienced within virtual worlds (e.g. online games). This study investigates the impact of gamers’ interactions with non-player characters (NPCs) and other gamers on their in-game emotional solidarity, destination image and willingness to visit associated real-world destinations. Data were collected from 538 Grand Theft Auto 5 gamers and analysed using covariance-based structural equation modelling (CB-SEM). Results reveal that both gamer-NPCs and gamer-gamer interactions were positively associated with emotional solidarity with NPCs and gamers, respectively. Also, emotional solidarity with NPCs and emotional solidarity with gamers were positively associated with in-game cognitive image. The in-game cognitive image was further confirmed to be positively associated with affective image and conative image. The in-game conative image was confirmed to be positively associated with the willingness to visit associated real-world destinations. These findings make a novel contribution to the literature on online gaming and tourism. Game developers need to develop activities that promote interactions between gamers while also designing NPCs that resemble locals and their customs to facilitate increased visitation to real-world destinations.

Lightweight convolutional neural network for real-time 3D object detection in road and railway environments

For smart mobility, and autonomous vehicles (AV), it is necessary to have a very precise perception of the environment to guarantee reliable decision-making, and to be able to extend the results obtained for the road sector to other areas such as rail. To this end, we introduce a new single-stage monocular real-time 3D object detection convolutional neural network (CNN) based on YOLOv5, dedicated to smart mobility applications for both road and rail environments. To perform the 3D parameter regression, we replace YOLOv5’s anchor boxes with our hybrid anchor boxes. Our method is available in different model sizes such as YOLOv5: small, medium, and large. The new model that we propose is optimized for real-time embedded constraints (lightweight, speed, and accuracy) that takes advantage of the improvement brought by split attention (SA) convolutions called small split attention model (Small-SA). To validate our CNN model, we also introduce a new virtual dataset for both road and rail environments by leveraging the video game Grand Theft Auto V (GTAV). We provide extensive results of our different models on both KITTI and our own GTAV datasets. Through our results, we show that our method is the fastest available 3D object detection with accuracy results close to state-of-the-art methods on the KITTI road dataset. We further demonstrate that the pre-training process on our GTAV virtual dataset improves the accuracy on real datasets such as KITTI, thus allowing our method to obtain an even greater accuracy than state-of-the-art approaches with 16.16% 3D average precision on hard car detection with inference time of 11.1 ms/image on an RTX 3080 GPU.

É perigoso: a glorificação do risco na mídia e as atitudes dos jovens em relação à direção no trânsito

Abstract This article analyzes short-term media effects of car commercials on TV that glorify risk, and long-term associations, such as the use of violent videogames, on the attitudes of young people towards driving experience. The study, a between-subjects experimental design, included 106 undergraduate students from the Universidade de Brasília (University of Brasília, UnB) during the first semester of 2019. The results show that the short-term effects of exposure to car commercials on TV that glorify risk significantly increase risky attitudes in relation to driving, measured by the Driver Thrill Seeking Scale (DTSS). But this only occurs among individuals who like violent videogames such as Grand Theft Auto (GTA). No short-term effects were found among the other participants, which does not exclude the existence of other types of effect, such as long-term ones.