Talk:Grand Theft Auto clone

message: Just flagging a few articles that talk about GTA-style games and make observations about them:
i.  ii.   iii.  </br> iv. 
Don't want to lose these, just in case. Randomran (talk) 18:57, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Additional research

message: Are there any glaring omissions or inaccuracies in this article? Everything is pretty well sourced, so I'm pretty sure it's accurate. And I've had a hard time tracking down other sources. But perhaps bigger fans of the genre have some thoughts. Backing everything up with research is tough. Randomran (talk) 00:50, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've had a good read and I don't see anything missing or wrong. Everything I could think of that should be noted is in there. Excellent work. Bill (talk|contribs) 13:26, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  spot check 

message: Apparently there are some issues with the prose and organization. There are grammatical errors, off-topic statements, and otherwise confusing statements. I'm hoping that other editors can check in and help identify these issues, so we can improve this article further. Randomran (talk) 21:46, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  moving forward 

message: Having read (#1) Grand Theft Auto clone, (#2) Grand Theft Auto and (#3) Wikia's GTA Clone. With that I have the following suggestions:
*I would lead the opening to follow #3, as they go down the path of "a game that emulates, or has gameplay elements similar to the Grand Theft Auto series... ...Specifically, a GTA clone is typically an action sandbox video game that usually contains a large free-roaming map that can be explored on foot or in a vehicle, with mission and side-missions displayed on a mini-map for the player."
:I can not seem to find any credible, reliable sources to support the claim of a genre.
*The intro is very unstable, darting off on several topics. There is not a consistent tone or flow. Topics do not seem to lead into one and other.
:"The genre also draws upon open world level design concepts from 1980s games such as Metroid." this is just out of the blue (I see its referencing the later paragraph that will expand on this, but maybe that is where it belongs).
:There are no citations or references in the intro. When you are trying to establish the article's notability, we need to see RS.
*The gameplay section... "Grand Theft Auto clones are a type of 3D action-adventure game, where players are given the ability to drive any vehicle or fire any weapon as they explore an open world. These games often incorporate violent and criminal themes, although games such as The Simpsons Hit & Run are considered more tame." is sourced, but lacks the flow. We are at the first section of the article and I feel like things have been repeated.
:When you say "These games are often incorporate violent and criminal themes..." and then go on to say "...although games such as The Simpsons Hit & Run are considered more tame." arent we talking about the same type of games? Are they the same genre or not?
*The more I read the more unfocused the article becomes. We quickly get into "some do this and some do that" all throughout paragraphs.
*"Grand Theft Auto clones allow players to freely explore the game world,[3] which is typically on the scale of an entire city.[12]" These generalities are just that, not facts just general things the writer has decided. This fueled me to check out the source to see if it had done some study or research to prove that this "is typically on the scale of an entire city.". When I followed the link it lead me to a 404 :(
*I would very much agree that "The citation scheme is, shall we say... unique.", but that is your choice.
Now this is my opinion and I hope you take this as constructive criticism, as I do not wish for you to take any of this personal. I would say, take a step back and try to develop the clear points that distinguish this genre and what denotes its' notability, keeping far away from "some have this and some do that...". Let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Thank you for your time, MatthewYeager 00:41, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks User:Matthew Yeager. Your comments are much more clear. I appreciate that this article hasn't reached GA status, but the comments from User:Tj terrorible1 were not enough to identify the serious issues that are alleged to exist. I'll get to work on it, either way. Randomran (talk) 17:25, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestions 

message: *I'd suggest a move in language from the 'usually' and 'often', as well as dubious statements that I doubt are attributable to any source, save for gross violation of WP:SYNTH, to more general statements like 'typically'. The current article uses many vague terms (for example, citation 21 and what is supposedly supported by it), and presents this as something that might or might not be true. Rather, present it as something that is the norm for this kind of game (supported with sources), and give examples of (extreme) deviations. Check the article for terms like 'often', 'usually' and 'some' and try to improve the prose there.
*Last few words of the lead: 'critical' is ambiguous.
*Gameplay needs a much more general introduction first. Currently, it assumes everyone reads and understands what's meant by the general term 'action adventure game' in the lead first, and discusses specifics. Before going into vehicles, you need some kind of 'you're this guy in this world and you need to do this mission' kind of discussion.
*I think something else that's missing is an in-depth discussion of the setting. The "gansta" part of it is actually significant, as is evident from the last paragraph of the article. What's so funny about being a "gangsta"? How do the different settings compare? Are there any peculiar or exceptional games in this sense? 
*Second to last sentence of history: don't use the rankings of Game Rankings, only use the aggregate scores for games themselves (not applicable here). This is by long standing consensus in WP:VG that Game Rankings scores are not comparable between games and through time.
*The article has a major lack of actual comparison of games in the genre. As I understand it, there's relatively few well known games here, and I'd like to see more analysis of them.
B-class is appropriate for this article. User:Krator (t c) 19:14, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the assessment. I agree the article needs improvement, and I appreciate having a bit more guidance as to how to move forward. Randomran (talk) 20:45, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  WP:ASSESSMENT 

message: GTA clone? Well there have been plenty of them have'nt there. mcjakeqcool Mcjakeqcool (talk) 12:55, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: GTA Clone?

message: Although this article is B-class, there are small neutrality issues pertained within it. I'll run over them and we'll see what needs to be done.
Lead section
Despite the fact that I already mentioned this, it has been ignored. I am talking about the opening line, 'Grand Theft Auto clone is a genre of action adventure video games epitomized by the Grand Theft Auto series'. I think the issue is plain obvious: the is a genre and epitomized by words. This, through original research and opinion, generalises the so-called "genre". A GTA clone is NOT an official term/genre and never will be, it is simply flagged by members of the GTA community and game reviewers. The line should read The term Grand Theft Auto clone generalises a genre of action adventure video game which draw similarities with the Grand Theft Auto series, or something to that effect.
Recent history
Another issue is the last few lines which talk about GTA IV. Quite biased I think, it's really quite amazing nobody bothered to rewrite them. 'Grand Theft Auto IV from 2008 refined the formula from prior games with unprecedented detail'. Refining the formula from prior games? How was the formula refined? GTA IV is still very similar in feel to most sandbox games ie GTA: San Andreas and even if it is the best sandbox game, nothing has been "refined". Saints Row 2 and The Godfather II were released after GTA IV and yet beared little stylistic influences from it. The statement refined the formula [..] with unprecedented detail is redundant and debatable. Sure, GTA IV may have been a good game but consider the fact that Saints Row, Crackdown, The Godfather and Scarface were, in respective order, the first sandbox games in seventh-gen and were the true "refiner-s" of the sandbox genre.
Take my points into considerations and express your thoughts, VG Editor (talk) 10:55, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: e.g. "We also wanted to limit the list to the best games in the genre" bridies (talk) 14:22, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

text: The article recently passed its GA review. Not to say it's ever perfect. There's room for improvement. But you're ignoring the numerous games that refer to the Grand Theft Auto clone as a genre, and many others that refer to Grand Theft Auto creating/popularizing a genre. That's a non-issue. The praise for GTA IV may be a little sloppy, and I'd be willing to find a better way to sum up why GTA IV was so darn successful. But I'm mostly going on the perfect 10 score given to GTA IV by IGN.  I haven't so much as played the game, and I'll admit I wrote this article, so there's no bias on my part. I really am just repeating what reviewers are saying about the game, and game journalists do have a pretty big hard on for this game. Randomran (talk) 03:11, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutrality issues 

message: I notice this article seems to ignore the entire universe before 1998. I threw in a few mentions (where there were refs) for some much older 3D stuff consistent with the genre as defined in the articles, but one thing that isn't well established is the extent to which 3D is a defining trait. It's assumed throughout the article that 2D is irrelevant, even going as far as to exclude Grand Theft Auto 1&2 from the genre, referring to them as "influences" only. 
What's the basis for this? I don't understand how this is established in the article. There are no refs at all in the intro. Conceptually the article seems problematic, and there's a really pronounced American bias and console bias as well. Am I missing something? This just went under GA review so I assume there must be something I'm overlooking.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.125.113.35 (talk) 07:58, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Life Before 3D?

message: I just removed this section and I can see that it has been removed and re-added quite frequently. There is no way a section like this could be justified. For one, there was not one single reference. Also, listing a game as a clone is very bold and could stir up controversy as there is no "formula" for a GTA clone. VG Editor (talk) 04:54, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it would be fine as a separate list article, following the format we have for other genre articles/lists. In order to "list" a game as a "GTA clone" one must have a reliable source stating that it is a "GTA clone". I agree it shouldn't be in this article though, per WP:EMBED and given the lack of references, WP:V. bridies (talk) 06:02, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of ''Grand Theft Auto clones'' 

message: Urban Chaos has all the elements that compose a "3d-free-roaming-3th-person-carjacking-shooter" and it was launched in 1999, two years before GTA3. All the games who are said to be cloning GTA are in reality cloning Urban Chaos and GTA3 was itself a Urban Chaos clone too, thus I argue that for the sake of accuracy and objectivity this page should be renamed Urban Chaos clone.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.19.30.15 (talk) 00:39, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Urban Chaos clone 

message: The entire article has only 3 citations that argue that the GTA series established a new genre of video games and 2 of them are to extremally informal and unreliable video games news websites and the other one is to an BBC article about piracy whose statements do not match the view of this article and in fact doesn't even mention anything related to a supposed "GTA Clone" genre.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.97.194.223 (talk) 16:31, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The term is well established as a genre - there just aren't many direct sources that track how it became called such. But there's no denying that there exists the genre of "GTA Clone" used by reliable sources to discuss games that follow the GTA pattern.  (And spot checking the references, they are all reliable sources determined by the video game project. --MASEM (t) 18:30, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

text: Also, the article does presently point out that GTA didn't "create" the genre (Blood Money and other games had features like this), but that with GTA3, the genre was formally popularized by how GTA3 did it. --MASEM (t) 18:31, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  GTA is not a genre 

message: Terms like xy-clone or xy-like are frequently used in video game magazines by editorial journalist, i.e. people who have played a lot of games in their time. But I don't think this legitimates an own article. Many games have influenced many other games, and it's ok to write that, but an own article is misleading. In fact, this whole article is written like an advert. Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven is not just NOT a mere clumsy clone of GTA 3, its development also seems to have started earlier. And who is to say, whether developer of game C was not rather influenced by Mafia then by GTA3? I think open world game or sandbox game hits the nail on the head, as a term for a genre/sub-genre. User:ScotXWt@lk 11:51, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: No, open world/sandbox captures a large world that has no set structure, but this also groups things like Minecraft with that. The crime/mission structure is the other half of the question that needs to be defined and that's what the majority of VG sources consider as GTA clones. We have to follow the sources, we cannot make up our own language. --MASEM (t) 13:30, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

text: Uh, oh "I think" and "I don't think". bridies (talk) 14:16, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Open world or Sandbox game 

message: Sleeping Dogs (2011) also was often compared with GTA. So i would even mention it, in some points it´s very close to GTA. In others completly different. I wanna hear your opinion guys. Is it a clone or just a good open World Gangster Story Based Shooter? I´ve btw never played GTA Chinatown. So i can´t compare them.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Oldie100 (talk • contribs) 21:20, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sleeping Dogs (2011) 

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message: This article is absolute trash. There is no such thing as a GTA clone and this is not Urban dictionary, this article has zero merit for existing and the references are non supporting. There are no references to which games are supposedly 'GTA Clones' saints row is the only game I can think of.  GTA took its ideas from other games and came years after other games achieved actual breakthroughs, super.mario.galaxy 64 was released 7 years before GTA3, legend of Zelda was released 2 years before GTA3. Randomly generated item locations, interactive NPC, open world 
third person games all existed in the decades before GTA 3. This fan boy page needs removing immediately. 109.76.246.219 (talk) 15:57, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bullpoo