Miami-Dade County is embracing Grand Theft Auto VI and its fictional version of Miami, "Vice City." The county administration recently agreed to install a "Welcome to Vice City" sign at the Kaseya Center in downtown Miami — a striking shift for a video game franchise long known for its depictions of crime, violence and other adult themes.
The county's enthusiasm stands in sharp contrast to what happened more than 20 years ago when the release of "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" sparked protests and a federal lawsuit from local cultural organizations over the game's portrayal of Haitians.
READ MORE: Miami-Dade County to build 'Welcome to Vice City' sign on Kaseya Center
In 2002, Rockstar Games, the company that makes Grand Theft Auto, released GTA: Vice City on the Playstation 2 and the original Xbox. It was the fourth main entry in the series that began in 1997.
The game was set in a 1980s pastiche of Miami that leaned heavily into the “Miami Vice” aesthetic with neon pinks and blues and men in white suit jackets carrying large guns.
Vice City released to critical acclaim and sold more than half a million copies in less than two days.
The game featured many of the same activities the GTA games are known for today: stealing cars, indiscriminately beating up computer-controlled characters, and getting into gunfights with police. The game drew the usual backlash from adults arguing violent games are harmful to children, but a specific section of Vice City resonated particularly with people in South Florida.
During a mission in the original version of Vice City, a character called "Umberto Robina" walks into a diner and says: "I'm gonna kill me a Haitian... We gonna take out the Haitians," referring to a rival gang in the game made up of Haitian people.
This dialogue line then caused major uproar among local Haitian organizations, including the Haitian American Coalition of Palm Beach County and the Haitian American Coalition for Civil Rights.
The groups sued Rockstar Games and its parent company, Take Two Interactive, Wal-Mart, as well as Sony and Microsoft who own Playstation and Xbox. In their complaint, the groups said games like Vice City desensitized children toward killing and attacking law enforcement.
The complaint specifically cited the alleged risk posed to Haitian communities if the thousands of people who played the game took its messaging to heart.
"In the United States, many Haitians already experience discrimination and hardship due to their race and ethnic origin," the groups wrote. "Defendants add another problem for the already beleaguered Haitian community to deal with when children are taught to single out Haitians for murder."
The groups requested that a judge order the companies to take the game off of store shelves, or short of that, adding a large label to the game boxes warning potential buyers of the dangers of playing GTA: Vice City.
The lawsuit was transferred to federal court and received national attention from gaming websites and traditional news outlets, but the court eventually closed the case after Rockstar agreed to change the dialogue to omit the mention of Haitians. Players who updated the game would play the same mission without Umberto Robina naming the ethnicity of the gang members he tasks you with taking out.
A media juggernaut
In the two decades since the release of GTA: Vice City, the videogame franchise has gone on to become a media juggernaut.
"Grand Theft Auto is by far the biggest individual title in gaming," said Mat Piscatella, video game industry advisor at market research firm Circana.
Earnings reports from Take Two Interactive state that the franchise as a whole has sold more than 475 million copies over its lifetime. Many of those sales are attributed to Grand Theft Auto V, which released in 2013 and alone has sold more than 230 million units.
"Grand Theft Auto V is the biggest Console/PC video game in both full game dollar and unit sales in U.S. history, in addition to all the digital add-on content sales from Grand Theft Auto Online," Piscatella told WLRN.
The upcoming release of Grand Theft Auto VI is expected to be one of the biggest media launches in history.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava's administration approached Rockstar Games to promote the game and its Miami connection — even in the face of public protest from the county sheriff and some county commissioners.
Attitudes towards violent games have also shifted somewhat as the videogame industry proliferates worldwide and more people in power play games like GTA.
" I grew up playing videogames," said Miami-Dade Commissioner Keon Hardemon during a recent meeting where the county discussed GTA VI. " Now, it is true, there are things that happen in the game. But look, the game is as realistic as you make it to be."
Miami-Dade is among other municipal entities promoting the Nov. 19 release date of GTA VI.
Miami Beach city commissioners voted this month to approve a GTA marketing campaign in return for $3 million.
