The ace in Rockstar's pack

Good evening!

Welcome to The Playbook, a weekly newsletter on the business of sports and gaming. If someone shared this newsletter with you or if you’ve found the online version, please hit the subscribe button below — it’s free! You can unsubscribe anytime.

Dear reader, 

Please meet Adarsh Singh, the newest addition to our team. The Signal readers would already be familiar with the byline. He has been our opener for the past few weeks. Couldn’t resist the cricket analogy 🙂After all, this newsletter is all about sports. By opener I mean, this past few weeks Adarsh has been writing the crisp intro you encounter every morning in The Signal. Plus other stories. He will now write for The Playbook regularly. I will let him tell you more about what you can expect.

Dinesh Narayanan, Editor

Hello everyone! This is Adarsh. It’s an honour to be writing for The Playbook and I hope I can continue the amazing work done by Jaideep. A few things about me: I’m from Uttarakhand, adore Manchester United (bantering in the comments section is more than welcome), and generally tend to avoid social interactions and media. Still, if you want to connect, I can be found on LinkedIn (market forced me there). Anyway, enough chit-chat. Let’s begin!

Ode to the Sunshine State

They say patience is a virtue. What they don't tell you is that this virtue is always put to the test. There’s one group that’s truly unflappable though: fans of Grand Theft Auto (GTA). 

The franchise is finally releasing its next instalment after 10 years. They dropped the trailer a few days back (or rather were forced to), and it is everything you hoped it would be. Fans have loved it so much, it’s breaking YouTube records by the day. Evidently, this is the best time to talk about one of the biggest gaming franchises in the world and its cult status. So let’s get down to it.

My first brush with GTA was Vice City. For the longest time (by which I mean until last week), I thought it was the first installation of the game. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The GTA franchise is divided into three universes, defined by the graphics of each. Games under the first universe were just called Grand Theft Auto and were your quintessential 2D games. This changed with the introduction of Grand Theft Auto III, which ushered the games into the second universe, characterised by 3D graphics. It was under this universe that games like Vice City and San Andreas were launched. The third and final universe is the HD universe, which includes games like GTA IV, GTA V, and the upcoming GTA VI. Of course, there were multiple ‘expansion packs’ like GTA: London 1961 & 1969 in between, but they don’t count as standalone games. Them’s the rule.

Speaking of rules, GTA’s lack of any was what attracted people to the game in the first place. GTA III was launched as the franchise’s first open-world 3D game. Unlike traditional ‘linear’ games where you move from mission to mission, GTA III provided complete freedom. You could choose to do the missions but could also roam around in a car. You could sit on the beach and watch the sunrise. The game was a universe in itself, a semi-metaverse if you will. 

This universe building required serious advancements in computing, and Sony’s PlayStation 2 provided that. In a decades-old interview, Leslie Benzies, then lead producer of Rockstar Games, elaborated on it. He says the PlayStation’s power allowed them to “bring the former 2D, top down world into full 3D”. The introduction of 3D into the game paved the way for some truly groundbreaking features. The ability to roam around the city with no break in action, 24-hour schedules with matching weather, ‘live’ radio stations inside cars… all these minute details made GTA III perhaps the most immersive game of its time.

Over the years, the franchise has built on top of GTA III’s success. In no small measure, GTA’s rampant financial success has helped them achieve that. Its lifetime earnings stand close to $10 billion now. Read Dead Redemption, Rockstar Games’ second biggest gaming franchise, has sold around 80 million units till date. In contrast, GTA V alone has sold 190 million units. The above graph shows just how important GTA is to Take-Two, Rockstar Games parent company. This sustained revenue foots the crazy-high budgets (GTA VI is reported to have cost $2 Billion) required to make the game. It has ensured that every subsequent title feels like a step up. Not just in terms of graphics but in storytelling as well. GTA made ‘rooting for the anti-hero’ cool. With GTA V, it embraced the idea of an ensemble cast for its games, giving it a touch of classics like The Sopranos. However, this obsession with noir has given the franchise a transgressive identity. Some of it was manufactured, some real. 

David Kushner, a video game journalist, wrote a book on the evolution and cultural impact of GTA. In it, he calls the game an “ultimate love letter to American excess; the violence, the crime, the sex, the drugs”. I agree with that sentiment and I think, so do the developers. Despite the game creators’ UK origins, GTA is rooted in American sensibilities, from its cityscape designs to storytelling references and even real life events that shaped its making. In GTA VI, that love affair is set to continue with a laser-sharp focus on Florida. 

What was your first brush with the GTA franchise? Drop your GTA story in the comments section below and I’ll share some of mine.

⚡️Quick Singles

💰⚽🇺🇸: French football club Paris St Germain (PSG) sold a minority stake to American private equity firm Arctos Partners LP at a valuation of €4 billion ($4.3 billion), according to Bloomberg. Arctos will own 12.5% of the club, and the deal is aimed at boosting PSG’s international presence, in markets such as the US, besides improving its existing infrastructure—upgrade its Parc de Princes stadium and build a new training ground. Besides PSG, Arctos is an investor in Fenway Sports Group (owners of Boston Red Sox and Liverpool Football Club) and recently bought into F1 team Aston Martin.

🏌️🇸🇦: Jon Rahm, the reigning Masters champion and the world’s third-ranked golfer, has switched over to the Saudi-backed LIV Golf circuit. Rahm’s deal will make him the highest paid in the tour, with his multi-year contract reportedly worth $566 million (£450 million), per The Telegraph. At LIV, Rahm will also own a franchise and lead the team. Rahm’s departure comes at a time when the PGA Tour and LIV Golf are thrashing out the final stages of their merger, which was supposed to close by year-end.

📺🏏🇦🇺: Amazon Prime made its foray into global cricket broadcasting by securing exclusive rights to all ICC matches in Australia in a four-year deal. The deal will cover Australia’s title defence of the men’s and women’s ODI World Cups, the World Test Championship, and other ICC tournaments. However, during this rights cycle, there are no ICC events in Australia. This will be Amazon’s second major live cricket acquisition. It also holds the rights to broadcast all matches played in New Zealand for the Indian market.

⚽️🇧🇷⬇️: Santos, the legendary Brazilian football club, was relegated from the Brazil Serie A for the first time in its 111-year-old history. Santos, once represented by global footballing icons Pele and Neymar, lost 2-1 to Fortaleza at home, while Palmeiras defended its title with a draw at Belo Horizonte. Santos’ relegation sparked riots, with devastated fans setting cars on fire in Sao Paulo. Santos has been under financial stress over the last few years, with the club’s debt ballooning to 700 million Brazilian reals ($142 million), per its coordinator.

🏏👕🇮🇳: Adidas, the official kit partner of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), claims to have sold “more than half a million Indian team jerseys” during the World Cup. In an interview with Mint, Neelendra Singh, Adidas’ India general manager said that the sportswear giant “touched that mark in early November”, and pursued a three-tiered product strategy that ranged from an “authentic” player’s jersey (₹4,000), a replica of the authentic jersey (₹2,999), and a fan’s jersey priced at ₹999. It also partnered with quick-commerce companies such as Blinkit and Zepto during the tournament.

📖 Weekend Reading

How progressive thinking turned rural Jharkhand into India’s women’s hockey hotspot [The Indian Express]

Team’s Sale Reflects Growing Links Between Pro Sports and Gambling [The New York Times]

That’s all for this week. If you enjoyed reading The Playbook, please share it with your friends, family, and colleagues. Please also subscribe to it (for free) if you haven’t already. 

You can reach out to me at [email protected] with any feedback (good, bad, or ugly), tips, and ideas. I'd love to hear from you!

Thanks for reading, and see you again next Friday!