Grand Theft Auto

A driving game made in Dundee that nearly got cancelled, and the thirty years since. This archive follows the series through the cities it copied, the studios that built it, the courtrooms it ended up in, and the jokes it left behind. The real Miami of 1986 and the real Los Angeles of the early nineties are here, photographed at the time, because the games themselves are almost entirely unfree and the places they were traced from are not. It covers the Hot Coffee panic and what actually shipped on the disc, the Supreme Court case that ended the legal argument in 2011, the leak, the modders, the radio, and the loading screens that became a visual language of their own. The sixth game had not been released when this was assembled, so nothing here claims to know how it turned out.

A chronological documentary of 847 moments spanning 1904–2026 on Loreline.

Curated by Olivier · last updated 2026-09-20

Eras

Studios, The buildings and the companies. DMA Design in Dundee, Rockstar North, Rockstar Games in New York, Rockstar San Diego and Leeds and Lincoln, and Take-Two, which bought DMA Design in 1999 for one pound. Also the working conditions: the crunch dispute is here in full, where neither the accusation nor the correction survives intact.
Controversy, The moral panic, its participants and its evidence. Hot Coffee, the ESRB re-rating and what was actually on the disc, the campaigners and the politicians, the press coverage, and the research that was cited on both sides. Rockstar, the games press and the campaigners were all interested parties and each is named as one.
Courtrooms, The legal record. Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, decided seven to two at the United States Supreme Court in 2011, which ended the constitutional argument and which almost no telling of this story includes. Also the FTC settlement, which required disclosure rather than imposing a fine, the Hot Coffee class action and its decertification, and the suits that failed.
Cities, The real places the games were traced from, photographed when they were themselves. Miami in 1986, Los Angeles and San Francisco and Las Vegas in the early nineties, New York across a century, and London. This is the largest part of the archive and the reason is a rights fact rather than an editorial one: almost no image of the games is freely licensed, and the cities are extensively documented in every era.
Business, The money, with its sources attached. Take-Two as a public company and its filings, retail and the shift to digital, GTA Online and recurrent consumer spending, and the launch figures that are actually documented rather than estimated. Sales claims here carry a source and a date or they are not made.
Radio, The in-game stations and the music they licensed, which is the part of these games people quote back most often. The DJs, the talk radio parody, the era-specific soundtracks and the artists whose work was cleared. Two hosts are real people voicing themselves.
Memes, The artifacts that escaped the games and kept going. The loading-screen art style, whose author is Stephen Bliss, Rockstar senior artist from 2001 to 2016, who took it from Jack Kirby and is almost never credited for it. The quotes, the death screens, the neon palette whose descent from Vice City rather than from Miami Vice is genuinely disputed, and the clips that spread on their own. Where an origin date rests only on aggregators, it is marked as uncertain rather than asserted.
People, The named individuals, in and around the series. Designers, writers, artists, composers, executives, actors, campaigners and lawyers. Living people are handled conservatively here: confidential settlements imply no outcome, and a disbarment is described by what it was for.
Development, How the games were actually made. Race'n'Chase and the 22 March 1995 design document, the Dundee office above a former fish and chip shop, the shift to three dimensions, the engines, the motion capture and the open-world tooling. The origin story here is the attributable one: Gary Penn's line that nobody wants to be the cop, and a project that nearly died. The police-bug anecdote that circulates as the origin is fan-wiki folklore and is not captioned as fact.
Trailers, The marketing as its own object. Rockstar's trailers have their own release-day culture, and the numbers around them need care: the first sixth-game trailer's ninety million views in twenty-four hours is Guinness-adjudicated on YouTube, while the second's larger figure is cross-platform and Rockstar's own claim. They are not comparable and are not presented as such.
Community, Practice, meaning the people who do things with the games rather than the things themselves. Modders and the tools they wrote, roleplay servers and the people who run them, speedrunners, machinima makers, archivists and preservationists. Where a clip from this world spread on its own, it sits in Memes; the server it came from is here.

1904 - Hudson Building & 42 Broadway. Rockstar Games is headquartered in New York, where Sam Houser remains president as of 2026. Hudson Building & 42 Broadway.
1913 - House of Lords. Publisher BMG Interactive hired publicist Max Clifford to court rather than avoid outrage around the 1997 game. Clifford was an interested party who built his reputation on claiming credit for manufactured stories, so his own account is not neutral. House of Lords - DPLA - cd380d3a407ccd83cdc5cde2386707ce.
1920 - Lower Manhattan by Brown Bros. circa 1920. Rockstar Games is headquartered in New York, where Sam Houser remains president as of 2026. Lower Manhattan by Brown Bros. circa 1920.
1937 - Exterior of the Apex building, new home of the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC settled with Take-Two and Rockstar on 8 June 2006 over the failure to disclose the Hot Coffee content that was relevant to the game’s rating. The settlement required disclosure, with future violations subject to penalties of up to 11,000 dollars each. No fine was imposed in the settlement itself; the 24.5 million dollars often cited was the cost of the recall. Exterior of the Apex building, new home of the Federal Trade Commission Abstract/medium: 1 negative : glass ; 4 x 5 in. or smaller.
1937 - Standing room only at Capitol labor hearing. Washington, D.C. June 4. The S.R.O sign was hung out today as Secretary of Labor Perkins appeared before the House and Senate Labor Committee. The Family Entertainment Protection Act, introduced 17 December 2005, would have federally penalised sales of M- and AO-rated games to minors and required annual FTC checks for hidden content. It was referred to committee and never became law. Standing room only at Capitol labor hearing. Washington, D.C. June 4. The S.R.O sign was hung out today as Secretary of Labor Perkins appeared before the House and Senate Labor Committee.
1937 - The Capitol from the Apex Building The new home of the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC settled with Take-Two and Rockstar on 8 June 2006 over the failure to disclose the Hot Coffee content that was relevant to the game’s rating. The settlement required disclosure, with future violations subject to penalties of up to 11,000 dollars each. No fine was imposed in the settlement itself; the 24.5 million dollars often cited was the cost of the recall. The Capitol from the Apex Building The new home of the Federal Trade Commission Abstract/medium: 1 negative : glass ; 4 x 5 in. or smaller.
1948 - Biscayne Boulevard in Miami, Bestanddeelnr 191-0761. Vice City, released in 2002, is set in a Miami analogue in the year 1986. Biscayne Boulevard in Miami.
1948 - Gezicht op Miami, Bestanddeelnr 191-0760. Collectie / Archief : Fotocollectie Van de Poll Reportage / Serie : Reportage Miami Beschrijving : Gezicht op Miami Datum : 1948 Locatie : Miami, VS Trefwoorden : panorama's Fotograaf : Poll, Willem van de Auteursrechthebbende : Nationaal Archief Materiaalsoort : Glasnegatief Nummer archiefinventaris : bekijk toegang 2...
1950 - [Cable Car Film] (sound). An archival film on San Francisco's cable cars. The Prelinger collection is a standing source of free-licensed American city footage.
1960 - London (Westminster), 1960, east at Cavendish Square to Margaret Street. London 1969 is the series’ single excursion outside America and outside the present, and the only expansion that required the original game to run. London 1969 is the only historical setting in the series. London (Westminster), 1960: east at Cavendish Square to Margaret Street.
1960 - London Royal College Street, Camden -by-Ben-Brooksbank. Royal College Street, Camden, 1960. View NW, near Pratt Street. [Precise location slightly doubtful]. London 1969 is the series’ single excursion outside America and outside the present, and the only expansion that required the original game to run. London 1969 is the only historical setting in the series.
1962 - Picadilly Circus -by-Ben-Brooksbank. London 1969 is the series’ single excursion outside America and outside the present, and the only expansion that required the original game to run. London 1969 is the only historical setting in the series.
1963 - NY stock exchange traders floor. Photograph shows stock brokers working at the New York Stock Exchange. Take-Two Interactive is a publicly traded company, and its filings are the primary source for the series’ finances. Recurrent consumer spending is 80 percent of Take-Two’s FY2025 net bookings of 5.65 billion dollars, with GTA Online and GTA V named among the largest contributors.
1965 - Clapham Junction BR Standard 2-6-4T -by-Ben-Brooksbank. London 1969 is the series’ single excursion outside America and outside the present, and the only expansion that required the original game to run. London 1969 is the only historical setting in the series. Clapham Junction BR Standard 2-6-4T geograph--Brooksbank.
1965 - Urban Scotland: Dundee (1965). Dundee filmed in 1965, twenty-three years before David Jones founded DMA Design there. The city's earlier economy was jute, journalism and manufacturing.
1966 - Goswell Road, Clerkenwell, London – 1966. Grand Theft Auto: London 1969, an expansion released in 1999, is the only entry in the series set outside a fictional US-styled city and the only historical setting. London 1969 is the only historical setting in the series. Goswell Road, Clerkenwell, London - 1966.
1966 - This is Newark, 1966. A 1966 civic film portrait of Newark, a year before the unrest that reshaped the city.
1967 - 1960s fashions - London, 1967. Photo taken in the rain, September 13, 1967 at St. James's park in London, England. She was from Germany. Grand Theft Auto: London 1969, an expansion released in 1999, is the only entry in the series set outside a fictional US-styled city and the only historical setting. London 1969 is the only historical setting in the series.
1967 - Broad Street station. This is now occpied by the Broadgate development. Grand Theft Auto: London 1969, an expansion released in 1999, is the only entry in the series set outside a fictional US-styled city and the only historical setting. London 1969 is the only historical setting in the series.
1967 - Broad Street Station - the Lombardic staircase in 1967. London 1969 is the series’ single excursion outside America and outside the present, and the only expansion that required the original game to run. London 1969 is the only historical setting in the series. Broad Street Station - the Lombardic staircase in.
1967 - Broad Street station roof. London 1969 is the series’ single excursion outside America and outside the present, and the only expansion that required the original game to run. London 1969 is the only historical setting in the series. Broad Street station roof.
1967 - Broad Street station viewed from inside train sheds 1967. Grand Theft Auto: London 1969, an expansion released in 1999, is the only entry in the series set outside a fictional US-styled city and the only historical setting. London 1969 is the only historical setting in the series. Broad Street station viewed from inside train sheds.
1967 - Broad Street station with Eastern Region DMU. London 1969 is the series’ single excursion outside America and outside the present, and the only expansion that required the original game to run. London 1969 is the only historical setting in the series. Broad Street station with Eastern Region DMU, 1967.
1968 - Elevated view across Stillwell Avenue showing control tower and storefronts. Looking east by northeast. - Stillwell Avenue Station, Intersection of Stillwell and Surf Avenues, Brooklyn, HAER NY-325-5. New York is the model for Liberty City, the setting of the first game, GTA III and GTA IV. Elevated view across Stillwell Avenue showing control tower and storefronts. Looking east by northeast. - Stillwell Avenue Station, Intersection of Stillwell and Surf Avenues, Brooklyn, HAER NY-325-5.
1968 - Koninklijk huis, prinsessen, prinsen, bezoeken, galakleding, Anglo-Nederlandse S, Bestanddeelnr 017-1359. London 1969 is the series’ single excursion outside America and outside the present, and the only expansion that required the original game to run. London 1969 is the only historical setting in the series. Koninklijk huis, prinsessen, prinsen, bezoeken, galakleding, Anglo-Nederlandse S.
1968 - Soho At Night (1968). Pathé films Soho at night in 1968, on the eve of the year the London expansion depicts. Grand Theft Auto: London 1969 is the series' only historical setting.
1969 - 1969 London, Thames, Westminster. The Thames and Westminster in 1969. The London expansion required the original game to run and remains the series' single excursion into a real, dated, non-American city.
1969 - COVENT GARDEN MARKET - LONDON 1969. British Movietone films Covent Garden Market in 1969. Grand Theft Auto: London 1969 is the only entry in the series set outside a fictional US-styled city and the only historical setting, which makes real London footage from that year unusually apt.
1969 - 1969 City of London, Bankers. The City of London in 1969, the year of the series' only historical setting. Free-licensed and archival film of the real place solves a period-imagery problem that game footage cannot, since no free licence exists for the games.
1969 - Looking at London: Victoria Line, 1969. A city archive film on the Victoria Line, which opened in 1969. London of that exact year is unusually well documented because of the transport and civic projects underway.
1969 - Lloyds Of London (1969). A Pathé newsreel from inside the City of London in 1969, the year the expansion depicts.
1969 - London 1969 archive footage. Seven minutes of London street archive from 1969. Grand Theft Auto: London 1969 is the only entry set outside a fictional US-styled city and the only historical setting in the series.
1969 - Queen Opens New Victoria Line (1969). A Pathé newsreel of the Queen opening the Victoria Line in 1969. Newsreel archives are among the most reliably licensed sources for the one historical setting the series attempted.
1969 - 1969 London, Piccadilly Circus, Big Ben. Piccadilly Circus and Westminster in 1969. The London expansion required the original game to run and remains a genuine rarity in the series.
1969 - Barbican, 1969: The development of the Barbican Estate following the Second World War. The Barbican Estate under construction in 1969, filmed by the city's own archive. Post-war London was still visibly rebuilding in the year the game is set.
1970 - Dalston Junction - view from train, 1970. This was the Kingsland triangle west curve used by the Broad Street to Richmond trains. It will eventually reopen as part of the East London line extension. The fourth-rail electrification was still in position. Grand Theft Auto: London 1969, an expansion released in 1999, is the only entry in the series set outside a fictional US-styled city and the only historical setting. London 1969 is the only historical setting in the series.
1970 - Liverpool Street Station 1970. Taken from a train leaving Broad Street. Grand Theft Auto: London 1969, an expansion released in 1999, is the only entry in the series set outside a fictional US-styled city and the only historical setting. London 1969 is the only historical setting in the series.
1970 - View of the World Trade Center under construction from Duane Street, Manhattan, 1970 retusche. New York is the model for Liberty City, the setting of the first game, GTA III and GTA IV. View of the World Trade Center under construction from Duane Street, Manhattan, 1970 retusche.
1971 - Demography Students and Staff, Faraday House 8th July 1971. London 1969 is the series’ single excursion outside America and outside the present, and the only expansion that required the original game to run. London 1969 is the only historical setting in the series. Demography Students and Staff, Faraday House 8th July.
1971 - London, Middlesex Street - 1971. Grand Theft Auto: London 1969, an expansion released in 1999, is the only entry in the series set outside a fictional US-styled city and the only historical setting. London 1969 is the only historical setting in the series. London, Middlesex Street - 1971.
1971 - London, Widegate Street - 1971--by-Helmut-Zozmann. Grand Theft Auto: London 1969, an expansion released in 1999, is the only entry in the series set outside a fictional US-styled city and the only historical setting. London 1969 is the only historical setting in the series. London, Widegate Street - 1971. London, Widegate Street, Sandy's Row, Artillery Passage, 'Petticoat Lane Market'.
1972 - Fiat 130 Coupe at Earls Court. Fiat 130 Coupe at the back of the exhibition hall during the London Motor Show in 1972 DVLA data First registered in UK May 1973 Manufactured 1973 Engine capacy 3235 cc Not taxed for UK road use since March 1985. Grand Theft Auto: London 1969, an expansion released in 1999, is the only entry in the series set outside a fictional US-styled city and the only historical setting. London 1969 is the only historical setting in the series.
1972 - 1972: The BRONX is Burning - NYC FIREFIGHTERS | Man Alive | Classic BBC Documentaries | BBC Archive. BBC cameras follow New York firefighters during the Bronx fires. The borough appears in Grand Theft Auto IV as Bohan, and its real history is documented in broadcast archives across decades.
1973 - James Brown Live Hamburg 1973. James Brown performing live in Hamburg, Germany, February 1973. James Brown appeared on Master Sounds 98.3, the funk and soul station in San Andreas. The stations are fully produced fictions with spoof DJs and spoof commercials in which the only real element is the music.
1973 - A RESIDENT OF ONE OF THE MANY RETIREMENT HOTELS IN THE SOUTH BEACH AREA OF MIAMI BEACH. NEARBY IS THE LONGEST STRETCH... - NARA. Vice City, released in 2002, is set in a Miami analogue in the year 1986. A RESIDENT OF ONE OF THE MANY RETIREMENT HOTELS IN THE SOUTH BEACH AREA OF MIAMI BEACH. NEARBY IS THE LONGEST STRETCH... - NARA.
1973 - INEXPENSIVE RETIREMENT HOTELS ARE A HALLMARK OF THE SOUTH BEACH AREA. A FAVORED PLACE IS THE FRONT PORCH, WHERE... - NARA. Vice City, released in 2002, is set in a Miami analogue in the year 1986. INEXPENSIVE RETIREMENT HOTELS ARE A HALLMARK OF THE SOUTH BEACH AREA. A FAVORED PLACE IS THE FRONT PORCH, WHERE... - NARA.
1973 - LIFE FOR LARGE NUMBERS OF RETIRED PERSONS WHO HAVE SETTLED IN THE SOUTH BEACH AREA REVOLVES AROUND THE BEACH. IT IS... - NARA. Vice City, released in 2002, is set in a Miami analogue in the year 1986. LIFE FOR LARGE NUMBERS OF RETIRED PERSONS WHO HAVE SETTLED IN THE SOUTH BEACH AREA REVOLVES AROUND THE BEACH. IT IS... - NARA.
1973 - Looking northeast at Third Avenue Elevated over Cross Bronx Expressway. Interborough Rapid Transit Company, Third Avenue Elevated Line, Borough of the Bronx, New York. New York is the model for Liberty City, the setting of the first game, GTA III and GTA IV.
1974 - San Francisco 1974 Archival Footage. San Francisco street archive from 1974. San Fierro is the series' San Francisco, one of the three cities inside the fictional state of San Andreas.
1975 - 1970s San Francisco, Street Scenes, Trams, 35mm. San Francisco streets and trams on 35mm in the mid 1970s. San Andreas, released 2004, is set in the early 1990s.

…and 797 more moments.

Full text archive: /loreline-text/grand-theft-auto.md

GRAND THEFT AUTO

MOMENTS0000
VIEWS0000
LIKES0000
TIME0000

Search moments...