GTA 6 Is About to Take Over Miami IRL

Miami has approved a $3 million Grand Theft Auto 6 marketing campaign

After several delays, Grand Theft Auto 6 is actually, really, almost here. Developer Rockstar is kicking the game's marketing into overdrive, including debuting a 27-minute extended look on Netflix last month. GTA 6 is set in Leonida, a fictional state based on Florida. It'll include Vice City, Grand Theft Auto's version of Miami. As such, Miami officials want in on the action ahead of the game's Nov. 19 launch.

On Thursday, the city of Miami Beach voted in favor of a $3 million marketing campaign that will find the game being "discreetly" advertised by the hospitality firm Boucher Brothers, according to Commissioner Laura Dominguez (via PC Gamer), a company that has been parodied on beach umbrellas in GTA 6. Logos will "be on their chairs and their umbrellas," Dominguez said; they won't appear in "iconic public places" or on city property. "Our city manager and those of us who have engaged have been very clear that this is not to be an in-your-face marketing campaign," Commissioner Tanya K. Bhatt added.

Not everyone was in favor of the marketing campaign, as the vote passed with a narrow 4-3 margin. Now, Miami Beach is allowed to negotiate a deal with Rockstar that would bring at least $3 million to Miami Beach.

"Grand Theft Auto is an adult video game where players steal cars, deal drugs, commit robberies, murder civilians, and assassinate police officers," commissioner David Suarez said. "That's their right. They can make it, they can sell it, and they can advertise it. But that doesn't mean that the city of Miami Beach has to help them do it." He discussed how Miami police officers fight the type of crime flaunted in GTA, and how Miami Beach has tried to market itself away from "an image of chaos and lawlessness," and that a partnership with Rockstar and GTA would do the exact opposite.

Commissioner Joseph Magazine downplayed the idea that police officers would be offended by GTA marketing in Miami Beach. "One actually kind of laughed at me, he goes, 'Dude, you think a video game is going to change what we do in the city or that's what we're worried about?'"

Fellow commissioner Monica Matteo-Salinas said that Miami isn't "going to be doing live-action GTA in the city. We're not giving away pistols and cocaine to people." She's a gamer herself, and said playing the game, or even seeing its logo, isn't going to propel her toward crime and violence.

Ultimately, the money a GTA 6 marketing campaign would bring in would allow Miami Beach to fund projects that have fallen by the wayside. "Protecting Miami Beach doesn't mean hiding. It doesn't mean shooing something away that's going to happen. It means the confidence to engage, to strike partnerships, to actually take control over something that we can embrace," Magazine said. One project that could get a lift is a renovation of Florida's Flamingo Park Memorial Football Field.

Miami Beach's vote comes after Miami-Dade county officials put together a pitch deck for a marketing proposal that would bring GTA advertisements to the city, like GTA 6-related baggage claim areas, GTA 6-inspired artwork, and Vice City-themed manhole covers. The proposal received some pushback from Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz, who, like commissioner Suarez, objected to the criminal nature of GTA's gameplay. "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," she said.

Once Miami Beach and Rockstar agree to a deal, GTA 6 will (discreetly) take over Miami from Oct. 15 through Dec. 31. Grand Theft Auto 6 will release digitally for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X on Nov. 19.