GTA 6 week: a $975,000 sign, a $400 box nobody is fighting over, brands in Vice City pink and an NDA reminder

Four smaller GTA 6 stories from the last week, in one place. The two bigger ones got their own pages: the merch that leaked through the Rockstar Store API and Rockstar’s new mod rules.

The Vice City sign cost $975,000 and arrived by helicopter

Last week we wrote about the Welcome to Vice City sign on the Kaseya Center roof. Now we know how it got there. Crews built the pink-and-white letters in sections on the ground, and on September 22 a helicopter lifted them onto the arena roof one by one. The finished display covers about 4,700 square feet and is meant to be read by people landing at Miami International.

According to reports, Rockstar paid Miami-Dade County, which owns the arena, about $975,000 for the spot, and the sign stays up through the Heat’s 2026–27 season. City commissioner Christine King said the permit money would go towards trail development in Overtown. A fictional state is paying for a real trail in Miami, which is the most Vice City sentence I’ve written this month.

The $400 box isn’t selling out

With hype like GTA 6’s, almost anything with the logo should have sold out overnight. The Vice City Collection didn’t. Five days after pre-orders opened, a Rockstar Store UK screenshot going around still showed it open at £349.99. In Australia the EB Games allocation disappeared within minutes, but that was a small batch at A$699.95.

The reaction has been louder than the sales. Gaming sites quoted fans who pre-ordered, slept on it and cancelled, and “junk” and “slop” keep coming up. Others went to their 3D printers: by September 25 an STL file of the Macca the Gator figure was on Cults3D, about 16 cm tall, for resin printers. It has no stash compartment, but it costs a few euros instead of four hundred dollars.

My guess at why: the box sells a character nobody has spent time with yet. Macca is the star of an in-game TV show we’ve only seen in clips, and there’s nothing of Jason or Lucia in it. A year after launch that alligator might mean something. Two months before, it’s a stranger in a box.

Here’s the full bill for a fan who wants every official GTA 6 item announced so far:

That’s before shipping and sales tax. With a typical US sales tax of about 8% it comes to $998.88, almost exactly a thousand dollars. The only line that actually contains the game is barely a tenth of the bill.

Brands are drawing their ads in GTA 6 style

Since mid-September, when the album teasers flooded social media with Vice City pink, brands have been posting their own pictures in the same style. A fan collage shows Hyundai, BMW, T-Mobile, Suzuki, Paris FC and Turtle Beach; GTA BOOM also counted Mercedes-Benz, Yamaha, Burger King and PSG. None of it is a partnership with Rockstar. It’s trend-chasing that costs one good illustrator.

The recipe is easy to read if you’ve made one of these: an orange-to-violet gradient sky, palm reflections on something glossy, hard highlights with little four-pointed sparkles, and a low camera. That’s why the carmakers win. Car paint is the surface this style was invented for. BMW is the smartest of the lot: it didn’t draw a new electric car, it drew an 80s 3 Series that could have parked outside the Malibu Club.

Rockstar reminded the cast about NDAs

After Stephen Root confirmed that he plays Brian Heder, Rockstar reportedly emailed the rest of the cast to remind them their NDAs are still in force. Rockstar hasn’t commented. Root is still the only actor who has named his role, and until November 19 he’s likely to stay the only one.