Dating A Video Game Character = Cheating? [GTA 6 MEGATHREAD]

[marvelvscapcom2]

As GTA 6's release window approaches. And the hype builds. I will edit the title of this thread to consolidate all future articles, controversies, opinions, gameplay and hype of the game. As it will prob be a large spectacle among gaming. So if you have GTA 6 gossip or opinions. Feel free to share!  Code in box? Online? Not impressed? Best game ever? Share away.

But first I wanna tackle a topic hot off the press lol. I assume I know what consensus will be on a collector/gamer site such as this but I'd still hedge curiosity of 1. How do you feel about this outrage and more interestingly 2. How would you navigate a non gamer partner having these concerns? 


But to summarize shortly. Women accross the country have been made aware of certain dating elements with the character Lucia in GTA 6.  Which supposedly include taking her shopping, for dinner, answering texts, being attentive.  This has led women to draw a line in the sand and verbatim say "he's gonna treat the game girl better than he treats me" leading to jealousy and ultimately boundaries.   And while some of these are made for the sole intent of stirring drama. It has gotten big enough that even IGN has covered it. And my personal gf has been made empathetic to the cause.

GTA 6's Relationship Mechanic Is 'Cheating' on Your Real Life Partner and Break Up Worthy, According to Angry Spouses https://share.google/2txqlJaq0MP7owDcZ


How do you personally feel about full blown sexual dynamics that sort of emulate a genuine sexual couple within a game?  Do you think it's immoral to enter the fantasies that directly when you have a partner? Would you be upset if your partner developed feeling esp romantically to a character in his/her game?


My stance


My main stance is that these elements aren't really new and I sort of don't grasp the outrage. In GTA IV. You have a phantom woman named Michelle calling Niko all the time to go bowling, and you oblige to keep morale up with her as it gives alternate plot points and possibly achievements for doing so. But does that mean because I dont take my real life gf bowling as often that I love Michelle more?  To break down the lunacy in that requires remembering that one is a real life human and the other is a sprite on a 720p tv from 2007 and all of the "affections' come with clear plot premise involving a secondary person (Niko) and has almost no direct attachment to the players actual feelings. This goes back to non gamers not being able to separate a gamers real life from his made up worlds.  I also kill, murder and steal in GTA 6. But have no desire to irl.   So this seems like a policing on fantasy.  And girls certainly have their own in the form of erotica, rom series and their own protagonists like Nathan Drake. 


As for being attached to Lucia. In the sense of being sad if she dies or wanting her happy. I'd say that's completely normal in interactive art forms. Games are immersive tools and Jason is not the person playing as him.  Id ask some of the outraged people who play Uncharted or Witcher or Sims or Last Of Us or titanic or bridgerton if they didn't cry when a main character dies or a heartbreak occurs.  If they did why?  Attatchment.  Invested in that character. Game characters effect us. It doesnt have to be "oh man I want Lucia" on a replica AI level. But it's no different than a movie.  Art. Or book.   Its extremely silly to even be having this topic in 2026


This seems like a social media formulated way to cause gender divides and controversy and most of all to be very hypocritical and controlling.  I personally think this is one of the silliest trending topics in games in quite some time.


But what are your feelings? 




Rules for the GTA 6 megathread

1. No spoilers

2. No spoilers

[bikingjahuty]

95% of online drama, especially when it relates to some trending media property feels completely fake and artificial. Sometimes it's the company who owns the IP astroterfing or shilling to create interest and likes around their media franchise to fuel the algorithms, and other time its some social media grifter looking for the next viral hot take that will get them notices or pay them dividends from ad monetization. In short, the internet, especially social media is so fake and contrived I wouldn't put much stock or mental energy in any controversy surrounding GTA6.


As for the topic at hand, sure, I wouldn't be surprised if there are actually women who feel insecure about a fictional character being played by their SO romancing another fictional character. However, 99.999% of women probably don't care or are completely oblivious to it. I think if your wife, girlfriend or whoever is getting legitimately jealous about a video game character, both her and your relationship likely have much, much bigger problems to deal with than Jason taking Lucia out on a date or buying her a new outfit.

[sworddude]

I think the game might be getting too realistic to some. it's pretty meme to see though. The main guy character Jason does seem really passive though not a high ranking character in the series in terms of being memorable, definitely a far cry from GTA V or previous rosters with whacky fun characters like trevor.

That being said most people don't play for the story anyway and just play in the sandbox world. but it does feel a bit more sanitized in some departments.

them memes kinda funny though, do wonder if there are options to make the guy more chaotic though, People speculated there was a rush lucia option during the clothing scene. what if we got options to not be a yes man at all times, might actually spice stuff up. default seems kinda dull.



if where going on topic, people that consider this stuff to be cheating probably need some therapy or meds. it's probably also irrelvant cause it's just the 0,0001% crazies not normal folks.

[ssj4yamgeta]

Wow, they're serious about this? I hope these people never discover the Persona franchise, which is basically half dungeon crawler half dating sim. It's an entirely ridiculous argument, especially considering the degenerate stuff most women read these days. Ever heard of Morning Glory Milking Farm? It's a very popular "romance" novel aimed at women which is basically bestiality porn. And their husbands/boyfriends are supposed to be OK with them fantasizing about that kind of stuff. Also, women who are so insecure that they feel threatened by non-sapient fictional characters, aren't worth dating in the first place.

As far as the game itself goes, I'm already starting to see people claim it's woke. After watching the 3rd trailer, I haven't seen anything to make me think that, but I also haven't seen anything to make me think it isn't, so I'll wait until I have more info before I form an opinion on that. It's too early to say at this point. I will say that it seems to have a much more somber tone than its predecessors. The humor has been toned way down, the only parts that made me laugh were a couple of the commercials. Both of the main characters also seem to be devoid of personality. I really hope the trailer was just covering parts of the game that aren't supposed to be funny. As of right now, I haven't seen anything that makes me want to buy it, physical copy or no. It seems like they were trying too hard to make a realistic crime simulator instead of a GTA game. The photorealistic visuals don't do anything for me, I've been getting sick of realism in games since 2018. It's no coincidence that the hyper-realistic games tend to suck these days. Reality inherently sucks, and the more reality you add to a game past a certain point, the more it's going to suck. Case in point, GTA6's dating sim elements. I personally have no interest in Lucia, so being forced to wait on her to make her like me so I could get the best ending would drive me up a wall.

[sworddude]

Wow, they're serious about this? I hope these people never discover the Persona franchise, which is basically half dungeon crawler half dating sim. It's an entirely ridiculous argument, especially considering the degenerate stuff most women read these days. Ever heard of Morning Glory Milking Farm? It's a very popular "romance" novel aimed at women which is basically bestiality porn. And their husbands/boyfriends are supposed to be OK with them fantasizing about that kind of stuff. Also, women who are so insecure that they feel threatened by non-sapient fictional characters, aren't worth dating in the first place.

As far as the game itself goes, I'm already starting to see people claim it's woke. After watching the 3rd trailer, I haven't seen anything to make me think that, but I also haven't seen anything to make me think it isn't, so I'll wait until I have more info before I form an opinion on that. It's too early to say at this point. I will say that it seems to have a much more somber tone than its predecessors. The humor has been toned way down, the only parts that made me laugh were a couple of the commercials. Both of the main characters also seem to be devoid of personality. I really hope the trailer was just covering parts of the game that aren't supposed to be funny. As of right now, I haven't seen anything that makes me want to buy it, physical copy or no. It seems like they were trying too hard to make a realistic crime simulator instead of a GTA game. The photorealistic visuals don't do anything for me, I've been getting sick of realism in games since 2018. It's no coincidence that the hyper-realistic games tend to suck these days. Reality inherently sucks, and the more reality you add to a game past a certain point, the more it's going to suck. Case in point, GTA6's dating sim elements. I personally have no interest in Lucia, so being forced to wait on her to make her like me so I could get the best ending would drive me up a wall.

people are mainly complaining how the main guy character jason is kinda a simp and passive while being bossed around by lucia guy can't even buy his own clothes That's the main thing really. he's also kinda awkward in convo's with other npc's.

lucia being the girl boss and them downplaying the male lead which has happened in multiple modern games is what people usually call woke. It has allot of elements aside from the usual LGBQT stuff in which people classify it as woke. also the script is pretty boring and sanitized, in past games it was allot more edgier which is again what people would categorize as woke. playing it really safe.

It is definitely different compared to past entries in terms of main characters. Lucia definitely seems to have a bigger role here but she also doesn't seem like an interesting character imo even in jason's passive nerfed form he is more interesting which ain't great.

also keep in mind the script by them og creators for GTA VI has been denied for 3+ times and you can definitely see it. there is no way in hell folks like dan houser or other og creators would have made this. he left the company after the script was denied multiple times. Also I do wonder if the delays have anything to do with just allot of old folks with skills leaving the company and being replaced by folks that just joined while doing some coding bootcamp while past talent was coding stuff as kids and thus being far better at their jobs.

Ever heard of Morning Glory Milking Farm?

[marvelvscapcom2]

Ever heard of Morning Glory Milking Farm? It's a very popular "romance" novel aimed at women which is basically bestiality porn. And their husbands/boyfriends are supposed to be OK with them fantasizing about that kind of stuff. Also, women who are so insecure that they feel threatened by non-sapient fictional characters, aren't worth dating in the first place.

them memes kinda funny though, do wonder if there are options to make the guy more chaotic though, People speculated there was a rush lucia option during the clothing scene. what if we got options to not be a yes man at all times, might actually spice stuff up. default seems kinda dull.

if where going on topic, people that consider this stuff to be cheating probably need some therapy or meds. it's probably also irrelvant cause it's just the 0,0001% crazies not normal folks.

Well I went down the rabbit hole of "morning glory Milking farm" and ahh what a day to have eyes lol. A bleach taco sounds about good rn.  Monster fetishist is new to me.  I've sadly been on reddit before and had to physically remove myself from it solely because you begin to see the sick stuff people kink for and weather private or not.  It's totally more prevalent than we pretend. And once anonymity comes into play. All of a sudden everyone is into play. You see some darkness.  And tbh even if you dull it down a bit with stuff like 50 Shades of Grey. In what universe is fantasy with one fictional medium different than another?  It's just the pot calling the kettle black at this point.  Statistics actually show girls consume a lot more romantic themed media in general. So romancing Lucia and Jason should be something most girls like. And I assume the ones who play gta will.  Like we said. Its definitely the loudest voices getting 99 percent of the clicks despite making up 1 percent of all women.


THE GTA WOKE DILHEMA

As far as the game itself goes, I'm already starting to see people claim it's woke. After watching the 3rd trailer, I haven't seen anything to make me think that, but I also haven't seen anything to make me think it isn't, so I'll wait until I have more info before I form an opinion on that.

But to throw my hat in the wider discussions around wokeness and the game being soft. The romance being forced.  I certainly have my worries myself. Not because of what rockstar has developing it but because of what they DONT have.  I mean they don't have Dan Houser...  they lost their George Lucas. its essentially the equivalent of making a south park movie without Matt and Trey Parker.  The edge, the humor, the satire is completely a Old Rockstar love child. The grit and humor of IV and 5 is all his genius. No doubt about it. You can't just remove the heart from a horse and win the Kentucky derby.  The way I see it rockstar has 1 of 2 options. And I doubt its gonna meet expectations regardless.


The safe route - Completely tone down all race, political and gender topic populist satire for the sake of not offending either side of the political matrix. And keep the controversies minimum. Which would be franchise suicide.  Dumbing the entire franchise down into some sort of uncharted or max Payne rip off. With only safe dad comedy.

Or

The GTA Route -  Double down on satire. Make it MORE offensive to reflect how divided the country is.  Actually reflect modern day Florida.  Feature stuff like podcasts and dynamic protests. Make fun of tropes. Political climate. All participants get a good shit sandwich to sniff. And the game shows the collective American zeitgeist how silly it really is.  Offending everyone in the process.  Takes balls. Big risk. Hard to pull off.


My only thing is. If they do go option 2.  It is so so so hard to do without being biased.  Its easy for example a progressive game studio to make fun of middle America alt right stereotypes like Joe Rogan but if they do that without also ripping into their own. it'll Come accross pandering. And segregative.   If they do self aware humor to both ends of the isle it will possibly be accused of being racist.  People will whine regardless.  But if its done. It has to be full circle everyone gets it.  To me GTA is like a video game south park.  Or beavis and butthead or 2000s ICP.  Its meant to be grating and loud. Funny without being exclusionary.  And back in 2008 that was easy.  But today? Its gonna be hard to tow the line.  I guess we can only wait to see.  I mean I guarantee if they added a mechanic to have sex with Lucia the modern climate would deem that objectification and itll draw a foul of some apologist somewhere.  It seems like walking on egg shells.  If I was them. Id go scorched earth.  Double down. I wouldnt even be afraid of the fabled AO rating tbh.   If my game didnt make congress mad Id consider it soft lol. Its gta baby. 



Other worries for me.

Traffic looks ass

From what ive seen of the 3 trailers.  Traffic looks like its running off the GTA 5 engine and not the euphoria engine or any alteration of it.  Car models are clearly being copy and pasted from 5.  With a 13 yr wait. We shouldn't be driving 2008 deviance calvacades.  I was not impressed with the first person driving or the overall car models ive seen. It looks far less realistic than tbe environments and people themselves.  I hope im wrong but I'm not seeing the realism which leads me to believe they are going arcade with the driving. I prefer a GTA IV level of immersive realism.  Degradable sprites. Real time damage. 


The rest seems nice.  I mean the physics and lighting are gorgeous and people are simply understating just how much they have seemed to pull from a PS5 hardware.  You got like 50 npcs and a flock of birds clashing against a ocean background with waves and ray tracing. No frame Dips at 30fps is more insane than people pretend.

[ssj4yamgeta]

Well, remember what I was saying about realism making games suck? It's apparently happening with GTA6, according to some new rumors. Apparently the devs have just said that higher end cars can't just be hotwired, and require special tools in order to break into. These "key cloners" can't just be purchased immediately, you have to do jobs for fences to unlock them. Then once you steal the car with the key cloner, you have to remove a tracking device that pings your exact location to police. This can only be done at a fence and is locked behind another set of missions. Then once the tracking device is off, you then have to pay the DMV to have the car registered to you! In a game named after stealing cars, you can no longer just steal cars. Cars also require fuel now, whenever your tank is low you have to stop at a gas station and refuel it for 10 seconds.

That's not all either. The game ascends to new heights of pointless WREOLISSUM in other areas as well. To accumulate money, you have to deposit it in an ATM. No phone deposits. Any money you have on you when you die goes poof. You can't just walk into a gym and lift weights, you now have to go to the front counter and purchase a membership before you can do that. Mod shops no longer do everything, you have to visit different shops specializing in different mods. You also can't buy safehouses, because Jason and Lucia are fugitives and property is too traceable. The only things you're allowed to own are garages and parking. GTA6 doesn't sound like a game anymore, it sounds like a pain in the ass.

How about in the next Call of Duty game you take one bullet to the leg, then the rest of the game is you convalescing in a VA hospital, fighting the government for your disability benefits, and attending veterans' parades? Who cares if it's fun, it's realistic, right?

[sworddude]

Well, remember what I was saying about realism making games suck? It's apparently happening with GTA6, according to some new rumors. Apparently the devs have just said that higher end cars can't just be hotwired, and require special tools in order to break into. These "key cloners" can't just be purchased immediately, you have to do jobs for fences to unlock them. Then once you steal the car with the key cloner, you have to remove a tracking device that pings your exact location to police. This can only be done at a fence and is locked behind another set of missions. Then once the tracking device is off, you then have to pay the DMV to have the car registered to you! In a game named after stealing cars, you can no longer just steal cars. Cars also require fuel now, whenever your tank is low you have to stop at a gas station and refuel it for 10 seconds.

That's not all either. The game ascends to new heights of pointless WREOLISSUM in other areas as well. To accumulate money, you have to deposit it in an ATM. No phone deposits. Any money you have on you when you die goes poof. You can't just walk into a gym and lift weights, you now have to go to the front counter and purchase a membership before you can do that. Mod shops no longer do everything, you have to visit different shops specializing in different mods. You also can't buy safehouses, because Jason and Lucia are fugitives and property is too traceable. The only things you're allowed to own are garages and parking. GTA6 doesn't sound like a game anymore, it sounds like a pain in the ass.

How about in the next Call of Duty game you take one bullet to the leg, then the rest of the game is you convalescing in a VA hospital, fighting the government for your disability benefits, and attending veterans' parades? Who cares if it's fun, it's realistic, right?

if they make it even more realistic they'll charge you 1K+ everytime you die for funeral costs 

[Cartagia]

Well, remember what I was saying about realism making games suck? It's apparently happening with GTA6, according to some new rumors. Apparently the devs have just said that higher end cars can't just be hotwired, and require special tools in order to break into. These "key cloners" can't just be purchased immediately, you have to do jobs for fences to unlock them. Then once you steal the car with the key cloner, you have to remove a tracking device that pings your exact location to police. This can only be done at a fence and is locked behind another set of missions. Then once the tracking device is off, you then have to pay the DMV to have the car registered to you! In a game named after stealing cars, you can no longer just steal cars. Cars also require fuel now, whenever your tank is low you have to stop at a gas station and refuel it

This is pretty much exactly the type of gameplay the GTA roleplaying servers have been subsisting off of for years.

[sworddude]

Well, remember what I was saying about realism making games suck? It's apparently happening with GTA6, according to some new rumors. Apparently the devs have just said that higher end cars can't just be hotwired, and require special tools in order to break into. These "key cloners" can't just be purchased immediately, you have to do jobs for fences to unlock them. Then once you steal the car with the key cloner, you have to remove a tracking device that pings your exact location to police. This can only be done at a fence and is locked behind another set of missions. Then once the tracking device is off, you then have to pay the DMV to have the car registered to you! In a game named after stealing cars, you can no longer just steal cars. Cars also require fuel now, whenever your tank is low you have to stop at a gas station and refuel it for 10 seconds.

That's not all either. The game ascends to new heights of pointless WREOLISSUM in other areas as well. To accumulate money, you have to deposit it in an ATM. No phone deposits. Any money you have on you when you die goes poof. You can't just walk into a gym and lift weights, you now have to go to the front counter and purchase a membership before you can do that. Mod shops no longer do everything, you have to visit different shops specializing in different mods. You also can't buy safehouses, because Jason and Lucia are fugitives and property is too traceable. The only things you're allowed to own are garages and parking. GTA6 doesn't sound like a game anymore, it sounds like a pain in the ass.

How about in the next Call of Duty game you take one bullet to the leg, then the rest of the game is you convalescing in a VA hospital, fighting the government for your disability benefits, and attending veterans' parades? Who cares if it's fun, it's realistic, right?

so supposedly they where planning to make some mechanics in terms for grocery shopping and you could even fill the fridge but they stopped doing so cause mechanics would get too complicated or actual reason game would become boring af.

[telekill]

My wife was watching a YouTuber going into this topic.

The topic at hand seems so ridiculous, it's not worth getting into, IMO. I will say that I'm not going to bother with playing GTA 6 for various reasons, but the underlying issue of it all is that modern Rockstar is not the Rockstar of the PS3 era and before. All talent has been replaced. The writing appears boring, the characters...unrelatable.

I wouldn't pay $20, let alone $100, to license this slop. I'll go back and rebuy GTA 4 (PS3) and GTA 5 (PS5) if I care to re-enter this series. I haven't played either of those since the PS3 days.

[Cartagia]

The topic at hand seems so ridiculous, it's not worth getting into, IMO.

Agreed.  And it is a silly thing to have titled the "GTA Megathread."

I wouldn't pay $20, let alone $100, to license this slop.

The game, whether ends up being good or bad, isn't slop.  It's obviously a crazy technical achievement that was probably achieved via crunch, hard work, and real sweat and tears for something people believed in.  Agree with the direction of the franchise or not, lets not minimize the work of those people by calling it slop.  The amount of work put into the game is the main reason I think the price is mostly justified.

That said, locking content behind the Deluxe Edition sucks, and the lack of a true physical release is anti-consumer and anti-ownership.  But those are decisions that came from the corporate suits, not the actual people making the game.

[telekill]

The game, whether ends up being good or bad, isn't slop.  It's obviously a crazy technical achievement that was probably achieved via crunch, hard work, and real sweat and tears for something people believed in.

Let's not call it a crazy tech achievement until it's released and we see how it runs on the various platforms for most users. Rockstar has become so blatantly anti-consumer with what to show for their ego... a single game per generation now? There's zero reason to be hyped for this and I used to be a fan. I was there at the midnight launch for PS3's GTA V. I was there on launch day for RDR2 on PS4. I won't be there for Rockstar's releases anymore and I won't support what these people believed in... because make no mistake... this will be another girl boss, anti-male propaganda party and I'm over it. So yeah, I'll call it slop until proven otherwise. They no longer get the benefit of the doubt from me as every entertainment industry has burned that to the ground.