"Gamestar Electronic Entertainment's heartfelt masterpiece."
"With over 3,000 core developers, more than 5,000 outsourced staff—over 8,000 people in total—creating a vivid, lifelike Los Santos."
"This world may not be as dreamy and surreal as Cyberpunk 2077, but it has more realism. It feels like something that could happen in our era—filled with modern satire aimed at society."
"It's hard for me to imagine a game could be this real. And by 'real,' I don't just mean the visuals—I mean the plot. It's so similar to reality that it actually scares me."
On several American game review sites, GTA 5 was being hyped up even before release.
Gamestar Electronic Entertainment used different marketing strategies for different games. For some titles, in order to ride the hype early, they gave game media early access—letting them play a few hours in advance and publish impressions.
This time, GTA 5 used that strategy.
By now, Gamestar Electronic Entertainment had built a mature, standardized release-and-marketing playbook. As long as they followed it, promotion would never turn out badly.
And then there were the supplemental tactics afterward.
Inviting streamers to livestream the game.
In truth, even without an invitation from Gamestar Electronic Entertainment, most streamers would've played it voluntarily anyway.
But when Gamestar Electronic Entertainment personally invited them, streamers were delighted—it meant their status as creators was being recognized by a major company. That made them stream even harder.
This time, just like Cyberpunk 2077, the marketing was basically maxed out.
Besides their own promotional channels, they didn't even let Mikfo's channels go to waste.
To emphasize the game's openness and diversity, Gamestar Electronic Entertainment promised from the start that GTA 5 would be released across multiple platforms—including Mikfo's platform.
For users who only owned Mikfo PCs, this was great news.
They normally didn't get many great games. GTA 5 was a rare masterpiece, so of course they were thrilled.
And because Gamestar Electronic Entertainment promised a full multi-platform release, Myron Keyes—though unwilling—still agreed to take the money and promote the game.
After all, it also meant more revenue for his platform.
But he didn't realize he was drinking poison to quench thirst.
Gamestar Electronic Entertainment releasing games on his platform wouldn't increase Mikfo PC sales—in fact, it might even drive users away.
Just like Apple computers in Takayuki's previous life: even with their own chips, they still couldn't gain an advantage in gaming. Games ran only at mid or low settings, never truly perfect—and the image quality often couldn't even match home consoles.
And most importantly, Mikfo PCs didn't have strong AI compute chips.
Many of Gamestar Electronic Entertainment's big games, without AI chip support, felt like completely different games in terms of experience.
Myron Keyes still understood too little about video games. In this area, he couldn't even compare to Jobs from Takayuki's previous life.
"Hey… why don't we just forget all this? What do you think?"
In an American household, a father was playing the latest GTA 5 with his child.
"Dad, this game doesn't look cool at all."
Beside him, the kid pouted in dissatisfaction.
The child loved sci-fi and fantasy settings, because they looked more interesting than real life.
"Mm. This game really doesn't look that great at first," the father said. "How about this—if you're bored, go sleep first. Let Dad play for a while, and tomorrow you can play something else, okay?"
"Ugh… fine. I'll go to sleep, Dad."
Seeing that his father was already completely absorbed by the game's plot, the child understood there was no point insisting. It was also getting late, so he went off to bed.
Compared to GTA 5's realism, he preferred Cyberpunk 2077's world and story.
That world was insanely cool—there was no better setting than that.
The child returned to his room, while the father sat alone on the couch. He turned off the lights, paused the game, went to the fridge for a beer, and prepared to really get into it.
For a kid not even ten years old, GTA 5 might indeed not be that interesting.
After all, his child's gaming taste had been cultivated starting with Cyberpunk 2077 and other flashier titles.
GTA 5—whose opening visuals looked a bit "rough"—would naturally feel less exciting.
But "rough" didn't mean low quality graphics. It meant it was better at being realistic.
In real life, what city is as clean and sleek as Cyberpunk 2077?
That kind of city was just a polished fantasy under futuristic tech.
Once you leave the core city, without high tech propping it up, isn't it still barren wasteland?
But his child loved that cool cyberpunk city anyway.
As for GTA 5's Los Santos—it was modern life's rough edge.
Not fully futuristic yet. Still a modern skyline, with a faint sandy-yellow tone—more real, closer to everyday life.
And that was perfect. Since his kid wasn't interested, he could finally experience GTA 5 in peace.
At this moment, he had just started. The game was still in the opening sequence—North Yankton.
A group of criminals robbed a bank.
During the robbery, one of them exposed his identity, forcing them to kill a witness, then flee the bank in a panic.
Along the way, the player alternated between driving to escape and leaning out of the car to shoot at pursuing vehicles.
From the very start, the game gave a powerful sense of tension. The father felt a long-lost surge of excitement.
He hadn't felt this in ages.
The opening hit hard—something only a handful of top-tier studios could pull off.
In the end, one character escaped law enforcement while leaving a partner behind to buy time.
Then the scene cut.
The man who stayed behind watched a funeral from afar, smoking silently. On the tombstone was the name Mike.
Then the scene cut again.
The tone was no longer cold and bleak. It shifted into a warm, sunlit palette.
The older man was talking to a therapist, unloading secrets he'd been holding in for a long time. The therapist patiently guided him—then told him to come back another day, because he had other clients next. Clearly, what the man paid wasn't enough for the therapist to fully devote himself.
The man stood, left the therapist's home, and casually sat on a bench by the coast.
That weary, weathered "middle-aged man" vibe instantly hit full force.
As a father, seeing this scene sparked a strange resonance.
He didn't have the old man's dangerous life experiences—but therapy, talking about family trouble, confessing his frustrations… that felt uncomfortably familiar.
This father didn't have a perfect family.
His youngest son wasn't even ten, yet already showed a hint of rebellion.
His oldest son was a full-blown rebellious teenager. That brat went out chasing girls every day, had zero interest in studying—if it continued like this, his eldest would end up at the bottom of society sooner or later.
And the father had no solution—just like Mike in the game.
Then the story shifted again.
Not far away, two Black guys talked nonstop, and the camera moved from the older man to them.
Huh?
Oh right—this game had multiple protagonists.
The father was briefly confused, but quickly remembered: multi-protagonist was one of the game's marketing hooks.
Certain groups loved to hype the game up using that point.
He didn't care much. A game's quality wasn't measured by that.
He even felt Gamestar Electronic Entertainment had "fallen," bowing to unnecessary political correctness.
Still, he was definitely going to keep playing. But compared to the two Black characters, he preferred Mike.
He decided he'd invest more attention into Mike, because he saw himself in him.
He felt a faint anticipation—wanting to see what Mike's future would look like, and wondering whether he could glimpse something of his own future through Mike.
The second protagonist was named Franklin, and his partner was Lamar. Their task was to quietly steal two cars.
This plot was really… so American.
The father smiled with a hint of sarcasm.
It seemed Gamestar Electronic Entertainment hadn't compromised too much after all—they were still accurately exposing social problems through video games.
Huh?
This car-stealing segment was actually kind of interesting.
It used a new gameplay feature: stealth and silent takedowns.
Of course, it wasn't real assassination—just knocking someone out.
Clearly, the game had borrowed part of the Metal Gear system.
Gamestar Electronic Entertainment had made legendary stealth games before, so transplanting stealth mechanics into another game was effortless for them.
This stealth segment was impressive. Most studios couldn't achieve this level of feel and fun.
If most of the Black protagonist's gameplay was like this, the father was willing to play more of him too.
Because in this era, pure stealth games were becoming rarer and rarer—more often broken apart and blended into large open-world games. Finding a "pure" stealth experience wasn't easy anymore.
After that, he successfully stole the car and drove off with Lamar.
Then they went to a car dealership and traded the stolen vehicle to the owner for cash, ending the job.
Their cooperation didn't go beyond stealing—money in one hand, goods in the other.
Wait… my bicycle got stolen two days ago. Was someone doing the exact same thing?
The father couldn't help getting suspicious.
Damn it—if I find out which bastard stole my bike, I'll break their legs!
He played the game while linking it to his real-life situation.
Somehow, the more he played, the more he realized: so many parts of this game felt similar to his own life.
Had Gamestar Electronic Entertainment become so precise that they could dissect exactly what kind of people their players were?
And at the same time, his anticipation for the game grew.
Next came more of Franklin's storyline—this time, the dealership boss told him to retrieve a motorcycle.
And here came another sharply satirical moment.
Two guys doing dirty work didn't feel ashamed at all—instead, because the dealership boss gave Franklin "Employee of the Month," Lamar got furious.
He thought he was the one working harder, and he unleashed a nonstop barrage of trash talk.
The dealership boss fed them empty promises and urged them to go get the motorcycle first—everything else could be discussed later.
Lamar could only swallow his anger for now and go with Franklin to retrieve it.
This sequence was even more intense than the earlier car theft, because it turned into a real gunfight.
Franklin arrived and found the bike wasn't there. Suddenly a gang showed up and blocked their retreat, and the two started mowing them down.
Honestly, the father felt this part was a bit over the top—but it was a game. It had to serve gameplay and fun. Thinking that way, it wasn't a big deal.
And the gameplay did feel great—killing enemies like chopping vegetables. They wiped out most of the gang quickly. When the gang leader realized things were going bad, he fled by car, but couldn't escape the protagonists' pursuit.
The father thought these two could be top-tier enforcers for a criminal syndicate. Why were they even petty thieves?
They were that brutal—they practically slaughtered an entire gang.
Soon they caught the fleeing leader, shot him dead, and got the motorcycle back.
Franklin cursed that killing the gang leader wasn't good for collecting debts—but he didn't care about killing itself at all, as if life and death meant nothing anymore.
That felt painfully similar to America these days. The country had been getting crazier and crazier—especially with the global economy sluggish, the madness felt even more extreme.
It really… felt like this world. Too real.
And Mike in the game… he felt like my life, too.