VOA Special English

This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.

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A lot of marketers would kill for a product like Grand Theft Auto. GTA Four is the newest in the popular series of violent video games.


Grand Theft Auto IV on sale at a store in West Hollywood, California
The Rockstar Games division of Take-Two Interactive Software in New York is responsible for Grand Theft Auto. Estimates suggest that Rockstar spent about one hundred million dollars developing the newest version.

Take-Two said about six million copies were sold worldwide in the first week, with a value estimated at more than five hundred million dollars. The first-week performance represented, it said, the largest launch in the history of interactive entertainment.

Some players reported problems with the game. Rockstar released a software patch to deal with those problems.

Grand Theft Auto started as a two-dimensional video game in nineteen ninety-seven. It was moderately successful. But in two thousand one, Rockstar released the third version. This time, players felt like they were inside the game. Three-dimensional graphics made it a hit.

Together, the first three titles sold more than seventy million copies.

Gamers say they like the realistic action and interesting storylines. Critics of violent video games -- well, you can imagine how they feel.

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