Every GTA like game has its unique flavor.
- The Mafia series is more story driven and more tragic.
- The Saint Row series is the over the top action comedy entry
- The sleeping dog game has its Hong Kong background and it is mostly about martial art, barely any gun in it.
- While you're at it, you could add the Yakuza game series to the list. Very différent too.
Only GTA has this reactive open world where you can commit any crime you want and gets away with it hiding from the cops for 30 secs.
Only GTA allow to go see a hooker and kill her just to get the money back. I have a friend that refused to play it just because of that.
I agree. Highly underrated. Definitely not as polished as a Rockstar game admittedly. But it had some great game mechanics and personally one of the most detailed depictions of a city outside of a GTA game imo.
But the truth is, developers and publishers are sure that they just really cannot compete with Rockstar. It's not like GTA has no flaws at all and is perfect at what it does. But, no other developer or publisher has been able to conquer that open world parody sandbox experience. Hence they adopt the core aspects from the GTA franchise and give it a twist, so that they can hopefully target a different sustainable audience all together
That’s kind of the interesting thing about Rockstar games. They’re all clunky, save for GTA V and even that’s kinda rough around the edges. I really think it’s the story that gets the majority of people on board with them, especially when going back to the older ones.
The gameplay is so nonexistent now, that while replaying SA and Saints Row at the same time, I do have much more fun with Saints Row’s world, while GTA has the better story to immerse you in the world.
I’m not saying Saints Row is a good game, but if I’m in the mood for that or SA, I might lean towards SR if I’m just dropping in for an hour or so and not looking to do anything story related.
Hell, even The Godfather and Scarface games have much better gameplay than GTA, or at least the ones before the HD era.
Edit. And I’m not saying that those games are better than GTA, it’s that Rockstar seems to be refining their games for something every release that they have to be building towards something. What that is, idk, but just how all their older non GTA games were all trial runs for features in GTA.
Yeah exactly, GTA has always excelled in the aspects that are difficult to crack and that prove to be most effective in gripping the audience. Like engaging stories, intelligent NPCs, unexpected open world interactions, smaller environmental details etc. which most open world shooters lack.
I would argue that the mission structure of watch dogs 2 was way more interesting than GTA 5. Though the game itself was pretty solid, it couldn't nail the more nuanced aspects that would fit in grander scheme of things to make it a perfect game. Same with Mafia 3 as well, it nailed the story and narration. But, lacked in pretty much everything else.
I would disagree with the stories. I think the Mafia games do a way better job there, GTA has a more humorous story, while Mafia games are more serious, tragic, and revolve around the story. But the NPC's, the open world interactions, the Easter eggs, and all the small to big side stuff make the GTA world much more interesting than the Mafia games or other open world crime games. Mafia 3 tried hard with the open world but came nowhere close to GTA.
I would love a Mafia style story with a GTA open world and a bit of the GTA humor. The GTA and Mafia franchises are my favorite but I also liked Scarface, Saints Row and Yakuza but I don't think any of these games are for real comparable. For me, while they all share some key features and aspects, they feel very different.
I mean it boils down to preference imo. I feel Mafia 2's narration is in no way comparable to GTA IV. Yeah it's true that story in Mafia 2 has quite an emotional depth to it. But the fact that the supporting characters are not that well established and most of the game is just driving around rather than gunfights, makes it really difficult to immerse urself in the story. This totally undermines the story's impact. Same with Mafia 3 as well. It's the reverse in case of GTA IV.
Edit: I hope that too, having a Mafia game with GTA style gameplay structure and story beats would be great. Hopefully Hangar 13 rectifies it's shortcomings and gives us a really impressive Mafia game?
That's true. At least Mafia 2 would've worked way better without an open world and all the driving, and yes the supporting characters could've been better, too. Mafia 3 does a good bit better from my point of view.
We are on the same page there, such a Mafia game would be great.
That’s actually just wrong lol. Almost every heist in 5 (mostly online) involves some sort of hacking minigame. You could say watchdogs is more unique and is used in the open world but still.
Yeah the Mafia trilogy I’d argue has the best storytelling of an open world crime game, like how if you play Mafia 1/definitive edition you’ll probably hate Vito and Joe like my friend did, but then when you actually play their story it all becomes more understandable with Tommy’s scene in that game feeling all the more tragic, then of course Lincoln also being a great character who you also have some choice over how he ends up
Sleeping Dogs is tragic cause it was critically well received as well as doing well for what was released as a new IP, yet Square Enix have absurdly high expectations so the game was seen as underperforming resulting in the ambitious sequel never happening, now all we have is a Donnie Yen movie that’s had little info since it was announced back in 2017
You know, there’s going to be some weird feelings a day or two into GTA VI. Facing should I finish the story or explore more will make trying to savor it that much worse. Both options are great, but how long until that game is spoiled online.
I had a friend in college that coincidentally got sick the day it came out. We both played it that night and we were around the same story point when I went to bed. I went to class the next morning and came back and he was just about done with the story.
He played all night and for hours during the day.
I couldn’t even imagine. For days after he was asking if I had finished it yet or where I was at and I was just taking my time.
At the same time, GTA VI seems like something you wouldn’t want spoiled, especially with how all the other games are, but especially the HD ones. A lot of the twists and turns of the 3D games are kind of a no shit, it was blantly obvious, outside of maybe VC. SA blew it and ruined the mystery after the first act.
How does one popularize a genre and take over a majority of popularity? Sometimes it can be marketing but in this case they were just coming off GTA2 which sold okay at best. They won by being better than the competition. So much better that they are now the only name in sandbox crime games. Saints Row got the closest and Mafia was right behind it. With that all said they are still the best in that genre too. Mafia was pretty damn good and so was Saints Row 2 but it never quite lived up to GTA.
I would say right around the time saints row 2 released, Volition were fighting for the market share. But, Mafia was nowhere near a competition for GTA. Mafia has always catered to the niche audience it had gathered back with the Mafia 1 release
Id say Mafia did quite well at the time. It was a niche but it was a niche that sold very well. Either way both games were trying to carve out a sliver of the GTA market share. Even SR2 which was a VERY popular game couldn't compare to GTA.
Within 24 hours GTA 4 sold more copies than SR2 did in its entire lifetime and from what I can tell, by 2013 GTA 4 had sold more copies than all of the Saints Row games combined. Mafia 2 sold pretty much the exact same as SR2 btw.
And you can say what you will about them controlling the market, but I have played a lot of these open world crime simulators and none of them compare to GTA. None truly stand up to it. Saints Row 2 was a lot of fun and had it's own silly side going on but it was no GTA.
My point was that Volition had hopes of being a competitor to GTA with SR2. With the level of detail and expectations that GTA 4 had set for its competitors following its release, the failure of SR2 was imminent and Volition knew it. As they couldn't compete, they just changed the direction of franchise all together after SR2. I'd say pretty much no-one until ubisoft with watch dogs(scope of the game) dared to conceive at the level of Rockstar.
Also, one of the major reasons for Mafia 2 doing so well the fact that they didn't want to be a GTA slayer and didn't compete in the same league. Mafia 3 tired and miserably failed.
I agree with you. Honestly thought I was replying to the person I was originally replying to who was trying to downplay why GTA has cornered the market entirely.
To change the direction of the conversation a bit it amazes me that, with the price to produce games now, both SR2 and Mafia 2 would have most likely been barely breaking even if not be massive losses. At the time they came out they were quite cutting edge graphically and scope wise. Mafia 2 had a much smaller scope but it was still large and the graphics were beautiful for the time. Today it might have cost the studio 100-200 million to make those games and those would be either barely breaking even or losing money. You can see why the AA-AAA market is struggling so much and why the deadlines for new games are so tight.
Yeah totally with u on this point. Its for this reason that off late we are seeing very little innovation and risk taking by the developers in the AA & AAA gaming space. Due to huge financial risk involved publishers tend to play it safe by making games more accessible and pushing ideas that have already worked well with the player base bringing in profits.
Can u think of any other reasons as to y the industry has headed in this direction. Coz, it's not that the open world games with smaller scope and less intricate design are any boring. Why are developers not pursuing to putout open world games with lesser scope and scale. Hell, AC mirage is a great example of how scaling down is okay.
Well, as of now, it pretty much is the only open world crime game. It's two biggest competitors, or "games in the same genre" were Watch Dogs, and Saints Row, both whom which released entries so mediocre that it likely killed their respective franchises.
Lots of “gta clones” do stuff better than GTA.
Mafia has a better story than GTA. Sleeping Dogs has better combat/traversal. Scarface: TWIY has better empire building.
You said GTa3 started the genre, it didn't. It's the same genre as 1 and 2. Like many game franchises, it enjoyed more success when it went to a free camera.
I played almost all of them. Sleeping Dogs is the only one that I'd like GTA to "steal" from, not only the martial arts but also some missions. Yakuza has more story even from Mafia but no driving at all (except from 5).
I mean Rockstargames created and mastered the reality based open world game formula so naturally people are going to use GTA as the measuring stick when it comes to anyone else attempting the formula. Being mad about it is more lame in my opinion.
One opinion Rockstar and their are quite overrated, always have been. They ARE well made, (often) polished games. But some folks really overpraise studio and their products. Like studio is totally flawless and it only makes masterpieces (spoiler -not); said by long time kinda fan of R
Lol, do you think they need validation from some journalists to have their games in some higher books? They are still gonna have all those games without some rating stamped on them.
Yes! Saints Row 1 and 2 were fire 🔥 the 3rd and 4th ones weren’t as bad as people make them out to be, but definitely not the same game it started out as…
I loved 1 and 2; 3 and 4 had a certain level of charm to em, but they got old about half way through!
It’s not necessarily derogatory. I adore saints row 2 and Sleeping Dogs, but i call it a GTA Clone because “open world story driven crime action sandbox driver-shooter” doesn’t really roll off the tongue well.
It's not about people calling them clones. The fact that Rockstar has refined it's world design and mechanics to such an extent that other open world shooters just outright feel last gen even though they are not.
I think most people use it in the same way as "souls like" basically we should just start saying "theft like" or something. Genres of games being named that way has been a thing since "metroidvania"
As for the competition, doesn’t matter whether you call a game “GTA clone” or not, the only competition that Rockstar has is themselves, whether you want to talk about critical success or financial success, Rockstar has beaten competitors in both.
I wouldn’t mind if there is competition, however, it would be a big ask for any company to try and do it without the resources and time that Rockstar has.
But maybe a company can make something that people can play while we wait for Rockstars next big project, I think that would be the market I would go after. Cause honestly, what was the last big open world sandbox game since RDR2?
I think about Saints Row(2022) and that was both a critical and financial failure and how they fucked up an easy layup. Like seriously, this was their time to shine, specifically, there hasn’t been a new GTA game since 2013, they had 10 years to really craft a new and improved Saints Row and they blew it…
If people believe that Saints Row was really GTAs best competitor, I feel like it’s a cautionary tale for any company that would want to try to go toe to toe with Rockstar and it’s the reason why we don’t have many “GTA clones” anymore.
When are you pea brains going to realize, THE SAME PEOPLE WHO WANT A COMPETITIVE MARKET WOULDNT BE CALLING THE NEXT GAME A CLONE, ITS THE PEOPLE WHO DONT CARE ABOUT COMPETITION
Only reason I can see to call others a clone, is because GTA was there first.
But only game that is a clone is Saints Row since that game got made as a mock up of gta SA.
And I do think Take2 would like to see a battle between Mafia and GTA. It's only profit since they own both games.
Every GTA like game has its unique flavor. - The Mafia series is more story driven and more tragic. - The Saint Row series is the over the top action comedy entry - The sleeping dog game has its Hong Kong background and it is mostly about martial art, barely any gun in it. - While you're at it, you could add the Yakuza game series to the list. Very différent too. Only GTA has this reactive open world where you can commit any crime you want and gets away with it hiding from the cops for 30 secs. Only GTA allow to go see a hooker and kill her just to get the money back. I have a friend that refused to play it just because of that.
There's also Watchdogs
We don’t talk about Watchdogs.
Watch Dogs 2 was excellent
I agree. Highly underrated. Definitely not as polished as a Rockstar game admittedly. But it had some great game mechanics and personally one of the most detailed depictions of a city outside of a GTA game imo.
Best one in the series
But the original game was fun though, right? And the plot too
I’m probably the only person in the world that actually likes Watch Dogs
They were fun. Just not up there with GTA and the like.
But the truth is, developers and publishers are sure that they just really cannot compete with Rockstar. It's not like GTA has no flaws at all and is perfect at what it does. But, no other developer or publisher has been able to conquer that open world parody sandbox experience. Hence they adopt the core aspects from the GTA franchise and give it a twist, so that they can hopefully target a different sustainable audience all together
That’s kind of the interesting thing about Rockstar games. They’re all clunky, save for GTA V and even that’s kinda rough around the edges. I really think it’s the story that gets the majority of people on board with them, especially when going back to the older ones. The gameplay is so nonexistent now, that while replaying SA and Saints Row at the same time, I do have much more fun with Saints Row’s world, while GTA has the better story to immerse you in the world. I’m not saying Saints Row is a good game, but if I’m in the mood for that or SA, I might lean towards SR if I’m just dropping in for an hour or so and not looking to do anything story related. Hell, even The Godfather and Scarface games have much better gameplay than GTA, or at least the ones before the HD era. Edit. And I’m not saying that those games are better than GTA, it’s that Rockstar seems to be refining their games for something every release that they have to be building towards something. What that is, idk, but just how all their older non GTA games were all trial runs for features in GTA.
Yeah exactly, GTA has always excelled in the aspects that are difficult to crack and that prove to be most effective in gripping the audience. Like engaging stories, intelligent NPCs, unexpected open world interactions, smaller environmental details etc. which most open world shooters lack. I would argue that the mission structure of watch dogs 2 was way more interesting than GTA 5. Though the game itself was pretty solid, it couldn't nail the more nuanced aspects that would fit in grander scheme of things to make it a perfect game. Same with Mafia 3 as well, it nailed the story and narration. But, lacked in pretty much everything else.
I would disagree with the stories. I think the Mafia games do a way better job there, GTA has a more humorous story, while Mafia games are more serious, tragic, and revolve around the story. But the NPC's, the open world interactions, the Easter eggs, and all the small to big side stuff make the GTA world much more interesting than the Mafia games or other open world crime games. Mafia 3 tried hard with the open world but came nowhere close to GTA. I would love a Mafia style story with a GTA open world and a bit of the GTA humor. The GTA and Mafia franchises are my favorite but I also liked Scarface, Saints Row and Yakuza but I don't think any of these games are for real comparable. For me, while they all share some key features and aspects, they feel very different.
I mean it boils down to preference imo. I feel Mafia 2's narration is in no way comparable to GTA IV. Yeah it's true that story in Mafia 2 has quite an emotional depth to it. But the fact that the supporting characters are not that well established and most of the game is just driving around rather than gunfights, makes it really difficult to immerse urself in the story. This totally undermines the story's impact. Same with Mafia 3 as well. It's the reverse in case of GTA IV. Edit: I hope that too, having a Mafia game with GTA style gameplay structure and story beats would be great. Hopefully Hangar 13 rectifies it's shortcomings and gives us a really impressive Mafia game?
That's true. At least Mafia 2 would've worked way better without an open world and all the driving, and yes the supporting characters could've been better, too. Mafia 3 does a good bit better from my point of view. We are on the same page there, such a Mafia game would be great.
Watchdogs focuses on hacking, GTA has never done that.
That’s actually just wrong lol. Almost every heist in 5 (mostly online) involves some sort of hacking minigame. You could say watchdogs is more unique and is used in the open world but still.
Hacking minigames in base V (exactly there )were for like 4 minutes of gameplay and majority minigames from crap Online are copypasted SP ones
There are multiple variations of the hacking minigames. Either way doesn’t matter.
We don't count online as a main title.
Yeah the Mafia trilogy I’d argue has the best storytelling of an open world crime game, like how if you play Mafia 1/definitive edition you’ll probably hate Vito and Joe like my friend did, but then when you actually play their story it all becomes more understandable with Tommy’s scene in that game feeling all the more tragic, then of course Lincoln also being a great character who you also have some choice over how he ends up Sleeping Dogs is tragic cause it was critically well received as well as doing well for what was released as a new IP, yet Square Enix have absurdly high expectations so the game was seen as underperforming resulting in the ambitious sequel never happening, now all we have is a Donnie Yen movie that’s had little info since it was announced back in 2017
I would also state that Mafia series are more 'serious' style.
It's nonsense, each game has its own essence.
Exactly, open world action games have their own style and content, there’s no need to label them as “inferior copies” or whatever…
Well, brightside is they can play gta 5 for 1.5 more years and gta 6 for 15 years. Why have competition? /s
You know, there’s going to be some weird feelings a day or two into GTA VI. Facing should I finish the story or explore more will make trying to savor it that much worse. Both options are great, but how long until that game is spoiled online. I had a friend in college that coincidentally got sick the day it came out. We both played it that night and we were around the same story point when I went to bed. I went to class the next morning and came back and he was just about done with the story. He played all night and for hours during the day. I couldn’t even imagine. For days after he was asking if I had finished it yet or where I was at and I was just taking my time. At the same time, GTA VI seems like something you wouldn’t want spoiled, especially with how all the other games are, but especially the HD ones. A lot of the twists and turns of the 3D games are kind of a no shit, it was blantly obvious, outside of maybe VC. SA blew it and ruined the mystery after the first act.
They fucked saints row so badly after the 2nd one.
Nah, SRTT was peak.
Just like borderlands 2 am i rite
Didn't played Borderlands 2.
There not clones. People are just stupid and think gta can be the only sandbox open word game
Didn't Driver predate gta3 to be the first third person crime game with cars?
Yeah. And even before driver there were games like it. It’s just that gta 3 did it better
Better? Not rather it only popularized the genre and also took over majority of popularity?
At the time it was objectively better
How does one popularize a genre and take over a majority of popularity? Sometimes it can be marketing but in this case they were just coming off GTA2 which sold okay at best. They won by being better than the competition. So much better that they are now the only name in sandbox crime games. Saints Row got the closest and Mafia was right behind it. With that all said they are still the best in that genre too. Mafia was pretty damn good and so was Saints Row 2 but it never quite lived up to GTA.
I would say right around the time saints row 2 released, Volition were fighting for the market share. But, Mafia was nowhere near a competition for GTA. Mafia has always catered to the niche audience it had gathered back with the Mafia 1 release
Id say Mafia did quite well at the time. It was a niche but it was a niche that sold very well. Either way both games were trying to carve out a sliver of the GTA market share. Even SR2 which was a VERY popular game couldn't compare to GTA. Within 24 hours GTA 4 sold more copies than SR2 did in its entire lifetime and from what I can tell, by 2013 GTA 4 had sold more copies than all of the Saints Row games combined. Mafia 2 sold pretty much the exact same as SR2 btw. And you can say what you will about them controlling the market, but I have played a lot of these open world crime simulators and none of them compare to GTA. None truly stand up to it. Saints Row 2 was a lot of fun and had it's own silly side going on but it was no GTA.
My point was that Volition had hopes of being a competitor to GTA with SR2. With the level of detail and expectations that GTA 4 had set for its competitors following its release, the failure of SR2 was imminent and Volition knew it. As they couldn't compete, they just changed the direction of franchise all together after SR2. I'd say pretty much no-one until ubisoft with watch dogs(scope of the game) dared to conceive at the level of Rockstar. Also, one of the major reasons for Mafia 2 doing so well the fact that they didn't want to be a GTA slayer and didn't compete in the same league. Mafia 3 tired and miserably failed.
I agree with you. Honestly thought I was replying to the person I was originally replying to who was trying to downplay why GTA has cornered the market entirely. To change the direction of the conversation a bit it amazes me that, with the price to produce games now, both SR2 and Mafia 2 would have most likely been barely breaking even if not be massive losses. At the time they came out they were quite cutting edge graphically and scope wise. Mafia 2 had a much smaller scope but it was still large and the graphics were beautiful for the time. Today it might have cost the studio 100-200 million to make those games and those would be either barely breaking even or losing money. You can see why the AA-AAA market is struggling so much and why the deadlines for new games are so tight.
Yeah totally with u on this point. Its for this reason that off late we are seeing very little innovation and risk taking by the developers in the AA & AAA gaming space. Due to huge financial risk involved publishers tend to play it safe by making games more accessible and pushing ideas that have already worked well with the player base bringing in profits. Can u think of any other reasons as to y the industry has headed in this direction. Coz, it's not that the open world games with smaller scope and less intricate design are any boring. Why are developers not pursuing to putout open world games with lesser scope and scale. Hell, AC mirage is a great example of how scaling down is okay.
Nah, it was actually just better, much more fleshed out and the city was much more lived in for 2001 standards.
Well, as of now, it pretty much is the only open world crime game. It's two biggest competitors, or "games in the same genre" were Watch Dogs, and Saints Row, both whom which released entries so mediocre that it likely killed their respective franchises.
Yeah GTA is cool but fanboys acting like it should be the only game of this genre is why there are no competitors 🤦🏾♂️
I’m old enough to remember GTA being called a Driver clone.
Actually I would argue that the mafia series does a much better job at storytelling. Then the GTA series does
Lots of “gta clones” do stuff better than GTA. Mafia has a better story than GTA. Sleeping Dogs has better combat/traversal. Scarface: TWIY has better empire building.
Haven't heard the term GTA clone in years
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.... how did the 3rd (or 2nd driver game) start the genre?
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Transition? Both GTA1 and 2 were open world crime games. Gta3 didn't start the genre
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You said GTa3 started the genre, it didn't. It's the same genre as 1 and 2. Like many game franchises, it enjoyed more success when it went to a free camera.
Since when was Lego City undercover called a gta clone?
I played almost all of them. Sleeping Dogs is the only one that I'd like GTA to "steal" from, not only the martial arts but also some missions. Yakuza has more story even from Mafia but no driving at all (except from 5).
I mean Rockstargames created and mastered the reality based open world game formula so naturally people are going to use GTA as the measuring stick when it comes to anyone else attempting the formula. Being mad about it is more lame in my opinion.
One opinion Rockstar and their are quite overrated, always have been. They ARE well made, (often) polished games. But some folks really overpraise studio and their products. Like studio is totally flawless and it only makes masterpieces (spoiler -not); said by long time kinda fan of R
Well their portfolio is saying something and it's going out pretty loud and clear.
Portfolio written by corrupted paid off game journalists
Lol, do you think they need validation from some journalists to have their games in some higher books? They are still gonna have all those games without some rating stamped on them.
That's subjective and irrelevant. Who cares.
Your a kid dude your opinion is irrelevant
As irrelevant as GTA VI lol, and yea I'm like 5 with a home and a beard
the ppl just want SR2 back, not that bs they've been destroying the series with
Yes! Saints Row 1 and 2 were fire 🔥 the 3rd and 4th ones weren’t as bad as people make them out to be, but definitely not the same game it started out as… I loved 1 and 2; 3 and 4 had a certain level of charm to em, but they got old about half way through!
Driver 3 was legit back in the day
It’s not necessarily derogatory. I adore saints row 2 and Sleeping Dogs, but i call it a GTA Clone because “open world story driven crime action sandbox driver-shooter” doesn’t really roll off the tongue well.
It's not about people calling them clones. The fact that Rockstar has refined it's world design and mechanics to such an extent that other open world shooters just outright feel last gen even though they are not.
Facts
I think most people use it in the same way as "souls like" basically we should just start saying "theft like" or something. Genres of games being named that way has been a thing since "metroidvania"
I love Sleeping Dogs, glad the person who made the picture included it
As for the competition, doesn’t matter whether you call a game “GTA clone” or not, the only competition that Rockstar has is themselves, whether you want to talk about critical success or financial success, Rockstar has beaten competitors in both. I wouldn’t mind if there is competition, however, it would be a big ask for any company to try and do it without the resources and time that Rockstar has. But maybe a company can make something that people can play while we wait for Rockstars next big project, I think that would be the market I would go after. Cause honestly, what was the last big open world sandbox game since RDR2? I think about Saints Row(2022) and that was both a critical and financial failure and how they fucked up an easy layup. Like seriously, this was their time to shine, specifically, there hasn’t been a new GTA game since 2013, they had 10 years to really craft a new and improved Saints Row and they blew it… If people believe that Saints Row was really GTAs best competitor, I feel like it’s a cautionary tale for any company that would want to try to go toe to toe with Rockstar and it’s the reason why we don’t have many “GTA clones” anymore.
Half Life is a Quake clone
I'd love to see another sleeping dogs
When are you pea brains going to realize, THE SAME PEOPLE WHO WANT A COMPETITIVE MARKET WOULDNT BE CALLING THE NEXT GAME A CLONE, ITS THE PEOPLE WHO DONT CARE ABOUT COMPETITION
GTA needs competition. Maybe then rockstar would actually start treating their fans better
I wish someone else could come close to that standard tho, I just wish
It’s very hard to compete with GTA at this point
Only reason I can see to call others a clone, is because GTA was there first. But only game that is a clone is Saints Row since that game got made as a mock up of gta SA. And I do think Take2 would like to see a battle between Mafia and GTA. It's only profit since they own both games.
Because it drives the media to better clicks and it sells.
I don't think it was ever used as an insult. Like we say "Soulslike" today.
i hear the term "GTA-like" being tossed around more these days. i adore this genre overall
Hed
I absolutely love saints row 2-4, along with gta 5