GTA 6 is just two months away, and Rockstar is spinning up the marketing machine in a big way. The studio’s proposition for a big money takeover of Miami, the real-life inspiration for the fictional Vice City, recently passed muster with local officials despite protests from some police members in the area. Now, fans are looking on as a $1 million billboard gets the marketing stunts underway.
A massive “welcome to Vice City” sign has been going up on the Kaseya Center, home of the Miami Heat basketball team, throughout the day. Social media has been awash in images and videos as pieces of the sign slowly get airlifted on top of the building. It’s tough to tell if the sign is complete – it’s currently facing straight up, so it’s either built for air-view marketing or it’s eventually going to be stood up and be seen from the ground – but it’s already quite a spectacle.
Eager GTA fans have already been crowding around live city cam footage watching the sign go up all day, and it’s big enough to make quite an impression even from a distance.
The Miami Herald reports that Miami-Dade county will collect $975,000 from this sign alone. The county is hosting the most “elaborate” displays for GTA 6, but other parts of the larger metropolitan area – including Miami Beach and the city of Miami itself – also have deals with Rockstar.
For its part, Rockstar hasn’t said much about GTA 6 since the game’s big Netflix debut, except to warn modders away from creating pretty much anything cool. Sure, Rockstar can reshape a real-life city in its image. But the game itself? That’s sacred.