Rockstar and Vice City take over Miami for GTA 6

A lot of anticipation is building for the, in a lot of ways, the most highly anticipated video game of all time. We've talked a lot about Grand Theft Auto 6. If you've been on social media, I'm sure you have seen about it. Preloading is underway. That started this week. Folks starting to download the 200-plus gigabytes of that game to get ready for its release next week. There's been a lot of talk about the impact on the economy with people not... Showing up to work, not leaving their houses because of it, it's just a huge kind of cultural moment when it comes to this video game, and nowhere is that more evident than in South Florida, where in Miami, the marketing is crazy, everything is kind of Vice City, you know, taking the look of the video game, and so joining us live now to talk about some of the things that he saw there. Theron White, lead publisher of EYNTK.info. Theron, I love this. So you went down to Miami, kind of a road trip there, and really saw everything that's Grand Theft Auto related, and it looks like it's a lot. Yeah, that is totally correct. I know we usually talk about our theme parks or our events here in Orlando, and it is very rare that a marketing team decides to take the word immersion that we expect at our theme park lands and make it an entire city. When it comes to taking over Miami, the Rockstar Games marketing team has truly outdone anything I have. So, here's the things that we do know. For anyone that doesn't know, Grand Theft Auto 6 is the sixth version of this game. There's going to be a ton of these video games that have... ...come out, and they kind of take you to different cities around the world. The last one was going to be in Los Angeles, and it was called Los Santos. This new version is going to come out next Thursday, November 19th, and it is already the most pre-ordered game of all time on PlayStation 5 and the Xbox. Now, for any parents that are watching this, this game is considered a mature game. There is crime, there is usage of guns and drugs and things like that. So, while it's an amazing game and I think people are going to enjoy it, I just want to make sure you know that before you maybe go out and buy this for your kids. So Vice City, the city that is Miami, that was last featured with Grand Theft Auto in 2006. So 20 years later, we're going back to Miami. And, well, the Rockstar team decided to take this to a level. It's kind of insane. Some of the shots you've been seeing here so far, they went over to local businesses and said, look, we're taking over the city. We're representing the city. And the Rockstar team is actually really good about this kind of finding the history, the culture and the locals and all of the things that you should know. And a lot of people when the last version of the game and Grand Theft Auto five came out, people went in droves over to Los Angeles to learn about Los Santos and kind of learn about its history, its culture and its food. So now they've tripled that quadrupled that we're here in Miami. So some of the shots you're seeing right now, they went around to business is small, like local family businesses, and said, this is hey, why don't you sell this item? Or maybe you can do this. And here's our logo. They have a bright pink V1 or the six logo. And if you see that, that means they're doing drinks or merchandise or food. They had custom cars built, just like you can see here. They've been going around the city late at night, and they have their own custom license plates. The state of Florida is called Leonida in the game. So it's Vice City And so the stuff that they have done, You walk around and you go, okay, I've seen a lot of advertising, or maybe when a team wins the Super Bowl, they take over their city. This is well beyond that. We're not just seeing billboards. I am seeing different kind of taxis that are having all the different kind of marketing. Like this one you see right here, Vice City on the side. If you didn't know that this game was a thing, a lot of the advertisements in the city, much like this one right here with the Manatees, that's not a real football team. It's just made up for the game and it's all over the city. I gotta say, I just, I went down there for about 48 hours and I was blown away that anyone really got this accomplished. So it really is, you know, just about everywhere? It is quite literally everywhere, yes. I mean, you can go to multiple sections of Miami. There are sections that I didn't know existed, and I think that's what's so great about this. There's a lot of people that go to some of our major cities. They go to Tampa, you go to Orlando, Naples, and Miami, and maybe you just hit the touristy sections. This got me to leave the touristy sections because I've been to Miami a couple times, and sometimes you get on there for a cruise, and you might bypass how great of a city it is, and I went to places I've never been. One of the ones I'd like to highlight, it's called Wynwood Walls. It is a graffiti section that they have in the city. It's this whole area in the game that they call the Stockyards. But in the actual real world, it's called Wynwood, and they have graffiti on the walls, and they're highlighting artists. Grand Theft Auto had people come from around the United States and the world to go and do graffiti in this part of the city, and you can see nine of the ten items for free. There's one more that's going to be hidden inside the actual Wynwood Walls Museum, but if you're a local, Rockstar said, no problem, we already fronted the bill, and anyone that's a local gets to go there for free all the way through 2028. So that kind of stuff is fantastic, and it gets you to go around. If you go over to South Beach, if you go over near the cruise ships, you literally can't miss it. When you're on a cruise ship and you're pulling in, instead of it saying Port Miami, it now says Port Vice City And the fact that they got the city to agree to this level of advertising, that is really what surprised me is I would be driving around and I would just see the logo and I'd go, there's another business. And I'd walk in and they go, oh, we have this or we have that. And this one that you're seeing on screen right there, that's what I really wanted to highlight because we're talking on Fox. Grand Theft Auto likes to do parodies, they like to make fun of stuff, and so that is Weasel News, it is their version of Fox News inside of the Grand Theft Auto universe, so we don't know exactly how we're going to see it, but that right there is Maka and Friends, it's some kind of animation that they're going to do inside of the game, and so Weasel News with Fox, they're going to be streaming some kind of show, we'll have to see exactly what that is, but I wanted to make sure I sent that to you guys and share it with you because, hey, you're in the game. I love it. Now, I'm curious because, you know, you talk about, you know, just the extent of this, the scale of this, you know, and we know there was a little bit of controversy that some officials in South Florida not necessarily excited about this. But I am curious about how people are, you know, how how folks, tourists, folks in the area, when you're when you're out and seeing these things, are you seeing folks? Taking pictures and kind of getting into I'm just curious what the reception is like from, you know, from from people kind of soaking this up or kind of interacting with some of these things. Yeah, I was in the city for maybe an hour. One of the first things I did is I went over to the Panther Coffee and I actually went and grabbed some of their Grand Theft Auto themed coffee. And while I was there, I had been parked in the city for maybe 45 minutes. I had two police officers come up and they said, oh, is this the Grand Theft Auto coffee place? And I said, yes. And I showed them the drink that I got and they gave me a handshake. They said, welcome to Miami. We're so glad this is happening. And they loved it. Almost every single place that I went to that was selling some of the merchandise or selling I'll link some of the food. businesses said it has been a boom for them and it has allowed them to be able to get brand new visitors who might not have gone to their small shop. I went into a couple of places that I'll be honest, I probably would have never seen if it wasn't for Grand Theft Auto, and now I've learned I love them so much that I'm going to go back again and again. There was a pizza place that I went to, it was at 12:45 in the morning, 11th Street Pizza, and the guy got me because he leaned out of the window and said, this is the best slice in Vice City, and he was holding a slice of pizza. It's such a thing that the characters would do in the game, but to hear that in the real world, it really kind of added that immersion even farther. Let's go a little bit further. And I was surprised, because sometimes when things like this can happen, locals might not necessarily love an influx of people going into places they don't always go. You like avoiding the tourists, but I'm telling you, everyone I talked to was in the best of spirits. They love that the city has taken over. They love what has happened. You are correct when it comes to some of the controversy of them deciding what exactly they could do in the city, because I think Rockstar would have basically changed the name legally of the entire city if they were allowed. But what they have done so far, I saw just constant excitement. Businesses loved it. Locals seem to love it. And as I said, even the police themselves were like, oh, I'm taking off November 19th. I'm playing this game. It really is crazy just to see the immersion of that and kind of the real life. You know, the real life city kind of being turned into to what you'll see in that in that game. It's fascinating to see. And, you know, it seems like you really kind of get those get those Vice City vibes. So with that stuff everywhere right now, the manatees add, you know, and you're not seeing Miami Dolphins. You're seeing the manatees. I mean, it's it really is just crazy. And there's also a festival. That's starting, what, next week? That is correct. So for them to make this game, they had a ton of musicians come and make original music just for the video game. And they have been known for a while in Grand Theft Auto and Grand Theft Auto 4. They were known for having these radio stations that people love. They make... Crazy comments, they play all this kind of music, and they said, look, for this one, we're going to go even farther. It's going to be the first time at a Grand Theft Auto game that you actually get to have headphones so people can walk around and listen to music even more. And so, of course, the Rockstar team said, let's not just make music, let's go and have those actual artists play in actual Miami for the debut weekend. So it's going to be next Saturday, and they're talking about some of the people that are coming down. We've got Travis Scott, Kodak Black, Cardi B, Justice, Metro Boomin, and more. They have already entirely got. Gotten rid of all of their tickets, so it's going to be a chaotic, in the best way, time. And they're going to be playing two different stages at the exact same time to listen to that music. Just for the music, they've debuted already, because you can get not only the soundtrack for the game, but the... Album that they also made, it's probably going to be in my Spotify wraps this year because I have been loving this, and especially when I was driving around, it was fun to be able to listen to the music of the game while seeing Vice City, and a lot of the local businesses were playing this as well. But that's not the only event that's happening. So the game is going to debut next Thursday, but next Wednesday, they were able to get the Miami Heat basketball team to switch over their entire theming for one night only called Vice City Nights. So they will no longer be known as Miami Heat for one day only. They're known as Vice City Heat. They're going to have special jerseys. They're actually going to change the court itself. And they've got some extra surprises that are going to happen. So if you're down in Miami or you can grab those tickets, there's probably only a couple left. You can go and transform into another world just for one night only and get even more immersed in the game. Like you said, they have really taken this to the next level. And those are two areas where I think that... We're seeing them go even beyond the advertising because you can buy a lot of billboards, but it's another thing to be able to go and convince an NBA team to completely change their marketing and to front the bill for it. Yeah, I mean, this is next level there. And is there anyone else who could get away with this to this level other than as I kind of set it up, the most anticipated video game of all time and the company behind it? Yeah, I was trying to compare it because a lot of places that like to do that kind of immersive advertising is kind of like our theme parks here in Orlando. When Disney builds a new cruise ship or a new land, it's normal for them to go over to Las Vegas or to New York, and they take some of that stuff with them, and they go and make kind of an immersive experience, and they want everyone to come down to them. And I think what kind of works in their favor for this specific game is there's already millions of people that are within the Miami area, and they said, look. Why can't we sponsor this taxi service? And why can't we go to this local business? And I think a lot of places, including the city, looked at that and said, well, I mean, why wouldn't we embrace getting something redone? They have a section of the city, it's called the Underline, and it's a spot where you're under the line where the trains are going by. And when I was there going and checking out some of the stuff they had done, they had rewrapped some of the pillars. They were going and painting some of these local areas. If you want to go play basketball, if you want to play soccer, they were taking care of that. So I think the city even sees this as, As well, I mean. They're paying for our parks, they're paying for our people to have local businesses, and they're supporting stuff. They're getting people to come down. And there has been an iffy part. So you'll notice that sometimes you'll see on the real advertisements, they'll have the characters holding weapons, or they're doing something, and then you go and see a bus drives by, and the character's kind of standing like this, and you can tell, ah, there used to be a gun in his hand. So because of that, like, they've had to move some of those things around. But really, when it comes to this level... I don't know. I can tell you that I've never heard of a video game ever doing this. But when we look at all kinds of entertainment, I don't know that this has happened outside of maybe something like the Olympics or the World Cup. Even though we had the World Cup just this year, you look at some of those cities and they did a fantastic job. They really kind of did a lot in those areas. They didn't do this level. I could not escape. I wasn't trying to, but you really couldn't escape the Vice City branding if you wanted to. Planes were flying over. There was blimps. They had the taxis that were driving around. As I said, that Weasel News van was driving around. You go to some of the nightclubs, and they've taken over the nightclubs. And they're taking over more as we head out into the end of November and December. You go and you rent chairs on the beach, and the chairs themselves say Vice City. They had a Vice City beach sign. And so you can't go anywhere unless you are in Vice City. And it is in a lot of the districts of Miami as well, not just downtown. Do we have any idea how long that stuff's going to be out and about? A majority of that is expected to end at the beginning of January in 2027. Not every single thing has published its contracts, and I have a feeling that a lot of the small businesses, especially because they've kind of done installations now inside of their business with the neon signs, and they've added things to their menus, they might be pushing to keep that for longer. But when it comes to the city, we have heard there are some contracts that have a hard cutoff on January 1st of 2027. So if you're going to go see this, I would go very quickly. And you published a, what, 30-minute guide. That folks can learn everything they need to know about it. Talk with us about that and where folks can learn more. Yeah, you can head to the YouTube channel EYNTKinfo, and on there it is just exploring Grand Theft Auto and all that it has to offer inside of Vice City. It's a 30-minute video. I went there this last Saturday and Friday, and it was 48 hours of nonstop footage. I got hundreds of gigabytes of footage, some of that drone footage you've been able to see, and some other things when I was going into the restaurants or going and exploring. All over the place. So I went in and said, look, here's all the different districts you can go to. You can explore. You can see it. And if you can't make it to Miami at this time, you can watch and go and appreciate it. It is a full 30-minute guide throughout the city. I had a blast making it. And honestly, as I was editing it, I was like, I kind of want to go back to Vice City. Well, a lot of people heading to Vice City starting next week. Theron Whiteley, publisher of EYNTK.info, we really appreciate you joining us and breaking all that down for us. You got a lot of good stuff there, it looks like, and we really appreciate you sharing that with us. Always happy to join, and with a lot of fans, as of next Thursday, it might be a little bit hard to contact me. We're going to be in the video game world for a couple days. I understand. Understandable. You know what? Coincidentally, I will also not be at work Thursday and Friday, so I don't know. Connect the dots if you want.