We were lucky enough to be invited to comment on GTA IV for the CBS Early Show this week, and we just noticed something kinda strange in the footage. In the intro to the piece, rather than use the real box art, they bizarrely used a piece of early fan-made art for the mythical "Grand Theft Auto IV: Carcer City." Real GTA nerds (or able-fingered Googlers) will know that Carcer City is the location used in the Manhunt games, and is essentially a fictional mashup of Newark, Detroit, and Philadelphia. Fans speculate that the Manhunt and GTA games exist in the same "universe" thanks to subtle references spotted in the GTA games. For example, there's reference to Carcer police chief Gary Schaeffer during a radio report in GTA III, and characters in both San Andreas, and the PSP games make reference to the city on the radio, and when you run into people on the street. "I'm moving to Carcer City!" etc. If you want to go even nerdier, "Carcer" is derived from the Latin word "carcere" which means "prison."
Anyway, nerding-out aside, I thought it was weird that a major media outlet would make sure a weird rookie mistake, particularly as they seemed to be so "progressive" in the rest of their coverage, showing that they kinda "get it." Fat, hairy wildman-of-Borneo looking Davison blatherings aside (and hey, the camera adds 10 pounds, OK?) it was a very well-informed piece overall, and was one of the first pieces I saw on the game that marked the distinct lack of sensationalism from the mainstream press on GTA this time around.
CBS Early Show and GTA IV, er "Carcer City"?
Wednesday, April 30, 2008 by John Davison
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2 comments:
It's kind of amazing how lazy major media outlets get when it comes to nerd culture. A lot of times, I think they just Google Image search, and use whatever they happen to find first.
Another example is when the film adaptation of the comic book Watchmen was announced. During the entertainment segment of some morning show (I can't recall which at the moment) they interviewed the director, Zack Snyder. While the interview went on, they flashed pages from Watchmen up on the screen.
That's when someone noticed that they weren't actual pages from Watchmen... they were from my friend Kevin's joke re-mix "Imagine Stan Lee Created... Watchmen"
http://www.beaucoupkevin.com/2006/08/this-weeks-project.html
On the one hand, I can understand CBS not taking this 100% seriously. GTA IV coming out is as non-news worthy as the latest season of an HBO show starting. But for the sake of their journalistic integrity... some basic fact checking would be appreciated.
Hah.
Got to say though - they were quite good about the actual story though - they went to people who KNOW things!
That almost never happens!
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