Miami-Dade police outraged by proposals to turn parts of Miami into GTA 6, saying that Rockstar's game embodies what they "work every single day to prevent"

County mayor pitches Rockstar a Motor Fest and Port Gellhorn-themed exhibit

The mayor of Miami-Dade, Florida has been pitching Rockstar Games about transforming parts of the county into recreations of areas from Grand Theft Auto 6, in the face of complaints from law enforcement and members of the judiciary. GTA 6 is itself inspired by Miami, so yes, this is one of those "simulation colonising reality" situations. The proposed publicity event would include "an immersive arrival experience" at Miami International Airport. with signs for Vice City and planes coated in GTA 6 livery, together with branded Metromover skytrains and specially designed manhole covers.

It's a predictable bid to snaffle a few of those GTA marketing dollars, while driving up the regional circulation of affluent Vice City nuts. Also predictable: a few people, and specifically the cops, find the idea of their neighbourhood being mocked up to resemble a Grand Theft Auto game problematic. Miami-Dade sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz and commissioner Juan Carlos Bermudez have already spoken out against the potential deal, observing in a joint statement that "we should be promoting the Miami-Dade we have worked so hard to build, not a fictional version of our community defined by crime and violence.”

The original story comes from The Miamian, who have gotten hold of a pitch deck submitted to Rockstar on June 29th by the office of Miami-Dade mayor Daniella Levine Cava. A spokesperson for the mayor subsequently confirmed that staff had “some conversations with Rockstar about potential opportunities around the launch of GTA VI.”

The pitch deck can be read here. All that stuff with the airport, skytrains and manhole covers aside, it proposes a dockyard visual installation inspired by GTA 6's Port Gellhorn, incorporating cargo containers, cranes, and cruise ships. There's also talk of a "Vice City Motor Fest", which might feature "classic cars, customized vehicles, lowriders, motorcycles, tropical graphics, and local entertainment within a controlled, family-appropriate setting." Attendees would presumably be discouraged from nicking the cars.

I do actually like the sound of the "Vice City Radio Lab", which is presented as a blend of local history and GTA elements. It would give "the community access to recording, editing, and digital-media equipment", in a space that supports "music production, podcasting, oral histories, neighborhood storytelling, sound engineering, video-game development, and other creative programming, while reflecting the central role that music and radio play in the GTA experience." As it happens, Rockstar have embedded a team in Miami to sponge up the ambience, research Miami culture, and study the habits of residents - including "ex-criminals", in the careful phrasing of senior vice president of narrative Rupert Humphries. I can imagine members of that team being eager to participate in a Miamian culture exhibit.

Still, GTA 6 is primarily a game about driving dangerously, stealing stuff, and shooting people, and the idea of recreating Miami-Dade in its image has wound a few public figures up, though the outrage appears partly to be just the latest ploy in a wider battle for clout and funding.

“Grand Theft Auto is a video game franchise built around criminal activity,” Cordero-Stutz said in a statement, shared by the Miami Herald. “Its fictional world includes murder, robbery, drug trafficking, carjacking, violence against law enforcement, and other conduct that the men and women of the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office work every single day to prevent.”

The dispute falls along party lines, somewhat – mayor Levine Cava is a Democrat, while Cordero-Stutz and Bermudez are Republican. Bermudez is also a potential mayoral candidate. The Herald adds that Cordero-Stutz and Levine Cava are currently "courting votes on the County Commission for competing funding proposals for the Sheriff’s Office in Miami-Dade’s 2027 budget".

The Herald also report that the county's chief Judge Ariana Fajardo and clerk Juan Fernandez-Barquin have written a letter to Levine Cava calling on the mayor not to feature any courthouses in a "promotional campaign for a video game whose central themes include criminal activity, violence, law enforcement pursuits and other fictionalized depictions of crime,” though the writers aren't wholly against the proposed installations, acknowledging that they could “fiscally benefit Miami-Dade County.”

In general, I'm morbidly interested in efforts to project gamespace into meatspace. Still, a lot of the thinking in the pitchdeck just consists of "slap the GTA 6 logo on it and watch the doubloons roll in". If you live in Miami-Dade, I'd love to know what you make of it all.

GTA 6 doesn't yet have a PC release date. The suspense of this recently caused Mark to travel back in time to a kinder age when wise guys knew how to treat each other right. Oisin, meanwhile, has been writing about Rockstar's dicey decision to constrain the actual "grand theft auto" element of Grand Theft Auto 6, together with its core couple dynamics.