Why gta series is so popular ?

[Deleted]

I really do not get it.
I played gta 1 and now gta 3 and gta 4.
I played saints row 2,3,4.
I have to say i do enjoy saints row far more.
Instead of having some random dude everytime, saints rows give you the continuation of the story.
I started playing gta4 and have to say, i prefered mafia 2 to it. Had more drive.
When i start saints row, there is always things i can do. Taking territories, modify cars, changing clothes, changing hair cut etc.
I can go from one point of map to another.
Yes, saints row looks like shit compared to gta but the gameplay is there. I do not get restrictions on shops i can visit/locations etc
Liberty city looks nice, but graphics doesn't make a great game, gameplay does.
So i really do not get why this game series is so popular.
Thanks in advance, if anyone could enlight me on this.
Cheers,
SEw

[Djriff]

Honestly i'm not sure. Probably because GTA did it first and did it well. GTA3 was revolutionary. Then you have something like GTA5 which was so much offline content there's tons of things you can do. As to why people like GTA in the first place? You can do anything with no RL repercussions.

[kail]

For me? I loved 5 simply because I liked the campaign and characters. After I beat the campaign and some of the side content, I stopped playing the game altogether.

[Aori]

I liked GTA 1 and 2. 3 and beyond are not my cup of tea.

[Djriff]

i hated 1 and 2 personally.

[Deleted]

Honestly i'm not sure. Probably because GTA did it first and did it well. GTA3 was revolutionary. Then you have something like GTA5 which was so much offline content there's tons of things you can do. As to why people like GTA in the first place? You can do anything with no RL repercussions.

Is it because it is a semi realistic game ? But you can say about all games. I didn't saw a game that had rl repercussion.
I had so much fun in saints row and sleeping dogs but i do not get the same feeling when i play gta.
Game cannot suck because it is so popular, so there must be something else, i cannot point my finger on it.

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i hated 1 and 2 personally.

Was not a big fan of 1 and 2 also.

[monkmastaeq]

why do people like x game i like y game so much better.

[Pandragon]

i just like driving around town in the cars.

[May90]

Well, I am not into the series really... But back in the days, I played a bit of GTA3. I liked its sandboxiness, where I could just do whatever I want, try different things. Don't know anything about Saint Row series, so can't comment on that, but I think sandboxy feeling of this kind of games it what makes most people play them.

[Djriff]

Was not a big fan of 1 and 2 also.

It was probably the fact that I played 3 first.

[Tech614]

Saints Row is like the straight to DVD cheesey horror flick and GTA is the summer blockbuster.

Saints Row is churned out re using assetts on a very small budget and has no where near the production value or world quality of GTA.

Put this into your head, no building model was used twice in GTAV. Not one. Along with all the fake corporation and brand names they make up to make the world feel living and breathing, along with all the clutter you see in the streets that is amazingly varied, along with the created TV stations, news alerts and radio stations.

There is your answer, there is nothing else like GTA in the gaming industry and no game is better at creating a living breathing world nor does any game even have the budget to come close.

GTA is not just a sandbox, it's a sandbox where you notice something new almost every time you play the game. Attention to detail matters.

[Vargulf the Happy Husky]

Murdering hookers. Deep down it's what we all want.

[fangless]

Saints Row is like the straight to DVD cheesey horror flick and GTA is the summer blockbuster.

Saints Row is churned out re using assetts on a very small budget and has no where near the production value or world quality of GTA.

This.

I can appreciate SR1 and maybe 2. They're fun to play to fill the gap in between more GTA releases. But they're so carbon copy, it hurts.

They really started to go down hill, 4 is just an awful redundant mess.

[Mister Cheese]

Because all GTA is really is a parody of real life. You can do anything and get away with it. It's pretty much everyone's fantasy. GTA is everything that's wrong with the world turned up to 11 and put into a game.

[Fencers]

Its the quality of the writing in the GTA series that rises it above similar crime genre open world games. Beginning with Vice City, all the GTA games are very sharp satires.

Even the marketing is so sharply constructed that low audiences appropriate the satirical affectation of GTA as fashion.

[Deleted]

Saints Row is like the straight to DVD cheesey horror flick and GTA is the summer blockbuster.

Saints Row is churned out re using assetts on a very small budget and has no where near the production value or world quality of GTA.

Put this into your head, no building model was used twice in GTAV. Not one. Along with all the fake corporation and brand names they make up to make the world feel living and breathing, along with all the clutter you see in the streets that is amazingly varied, along with the created TV stations, news alerts and radio stations.

There is your answer, there is nothing else like GTA in the gaming industry and no game is better at creating a living breathing world nor does any game even have the budget to come close.

GTA is not just a sandbox, it's a sandbox where you notice something new almost every time you play the game. Attention to detail matters.

This really isn't the answer. I am not asking why GTAV was popular. I am asking because of all series.
If saints row creators had such much cash as rockstar for gta, they would probably did the same thing.
But that doesn't really answer my question, what makes this series popular.
You cannot make game like gta 5 without huge budget.
Nevertheless i enjoy saints row more. Better characters, and kick ass protagonist.
But when you take that cash, from gta what remains.
What is the core of the game.
All things that you describe can be done with money slapped into it.

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Because all GTA is really is a parody of real life. You can do anything and get away with it. It's pretty much everyone's fantasy. GTA is everything that's wrong with the world turned up to 11 and put into a game.

And you cannot do it in any other game, right.

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This.

I can appreciate SR1 and maybe 2. They're fun to play to fill the gap in between more GTA releases. But they're so carbon copy, it hurts.

They really started to go down hill, 4 is just an awful redundant mess.

Frankly, i love kinzie as she appears in SR4.

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Its the quality of the writing in the GTA series that rises it above similar crime genre open world games. Beginning with Vice City, all the GTA games are very sharp satires.

Even the marketing is so sharply constructed that low audiences appropriate the satirical affectation of GTA as fashion.

So that is the reason is it popular so much because it is satire ?

For me it falls at all fronts.
It tries to do all the things an rpg, driver game, shooting game etc.
Not to mention the fact they introduce new character every game.

[PomPyro]

I loved them all - they were so great. Haven't tried 5 yet cuz my new pc has no gfx card. Waiting on pascel. But 5 is on my wish list.
For starters I played GTA 1 all the way thru. It had that New York gritty atmosphere. Vice City has the Florida feel, and San Andreas feels like California.
If you're not from America you can easily go online, listen to radio stations from all parts of the world. After you listen to a few radio announcers in Florida talk about the weather, hurricane warnings and such then as you're playing Vice City jamming out to tracks from the 80's in top down convertible when suddenly the song is interrupted with a hurricane warning and wind advisory it's maddening. Not the angry kind of mad (grr) but the crazy kind of mad (muahaha). I could go on with San Andreas.

[Phookah]

This really isn't the answer. I am not asking why GTAV was popular. I am asking because of all series.
If saints row creators had such much cash as rockstar for gta, they would probably did the same thing.
But that doesn't really answer my question, what makes this series popular.
You cannot make game like gta 5 without huge budget.
Nevertheless i enjoy saints row more. Better characters, and kick ass protagonist.
But when you take that cash, from gta what remains.
What is the core of the game.
All things that you describe can be done with money slapped into it.

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And you cannot do it in any other game, right.

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Frankly, i love kinzie as she appears in SR4.

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So that is the reason is it popular so much because it is satire ?

For me it falls at all fronts.
It tries to do all the things an rpg, driver game, shooting game etc.
Not to mention the fact they introduce new character every game.

Because subjective tastes are subjective. Personally I'm not a big fan of Saints Row, I can only take like an hour of the white gangsters and dildos and constant goofy tone.

[Tech614]

All things that you describe can be done with money slapped into it.

False. If money could do it every game developer would be making GTAs to make bank. It still takes a talented group of artists, writers and content creators to put all that money well spent onto a blank canvas and create a world.

You basically got your question answered and don't like it "because I like SR better". Subjective opinions are subjective, you might like Giant Spider straight to SyFy dvd but it's not going to be as popular as the jungle book. Saints Row can never be what GTA is, and money is only part of it. Rockstar is flat out better then 95% of video game developers and have a large budget on top of it.

[Fencers]

So that is the reason is it popular so much because it is satire ?

I literally just said why; it's very well written.

For me it falls at all fronts.

That's fine but not really useful or interesting. The OP here asks why it is so popular vis-a-vis other games with a similar theme in the genre. Those other games are lesser written and have to date not captured the gaming audience's interest.

It tries to do all the things an rpg, driver game, shooting game etc.

What does GTA try to do that is like an RPG? There are no roles, rolls or Roles in the games. It's pretty objective driven mechanically without concern for the agency of the player in a given role- which is what an RPG is.

Not to mention the fact they introduce new character every game.

That's really personal. A continuous story and ongoing characters are not really universally needed, desired or artistically appropriate in any given media.

The GTA series is an anthology: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, etc.