To follow Stockholm Pride’s mission to spread love and equality – we created a digital pride parade inside one of the most violent games in the world – Grand Theft Auto 5 (GTA 5). The Los Santos Pride parade – named after the fictional city within the game – was free to download, so every player could have their own digital pride parade inside the game. The modification (a plugin that modifies the game) was created together with real Grand Theft Auto 5 fans across the world and was launched with a trailer on Youtube and Facebook. To honour the victims of the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, the whole parade was made indestructible. Why? Because love will always triumph over hate.
Creative Execution
A mod, short for modification, is when you add or alter the code of a computer game. GTA 5 has a devoted fan following with lots of mod-creators. Most of the already-existing mods add new cars or clothes to the game. In order to create Los Santos Pride, we searched in fan forums for people to join us in the creation of the pride parade mod. In collaboration with some of the most talented GTA 5 amateur code scripters and texture designers we started creating Los Santos Pride. We created new cars, custom made clothes, rainbow flags, face paint and signs saying “Love comes in all colors”. We also included GTA 5’s main characters Trevor, Michael and Franklin in the parade. However, towards the end of the scripting process, the horrific shooting at the iconic gay nightclub, Pulse, in Orlando, that left 49 people dead and over 53 others injured. Therefore we decided to make the parade indestructible (in a game where literally everything is destroyable) – not to moralize over gaming violence but to rather show that love always triumph hate.
Los Santos Pride instantly sparked a debate in the comment sections on Youtube and Facebook, where thousands of gamers gathered to discuss equality and representation. Many of the comments revealing the already existing homophobia within the community, and the need for initiatives like this. Hours after the launch international media started reporting on Los Santos Pride. From respected gaming media such as Kotaku, Polygon and PC Gamer to news outlets such as BBC, Metro and NBC. The campaign has had a significant spread on Twitter and Facebook, ticking up to over 35,000 social media shares. Many prolific companies and personalities have expressed their support for Los Santos Pride, such as YouTube via their Twitter, BBC tech show presenter Kate Russell and creators of GTA Rockstar Entertainment.
+6 million views on Youtube and Facebook combined
+7000 downloads of the mod
+35 000 shares in social media
Visits from 133 countries
Modifying games, or ‘modding’, is a popular phenomenon within the gaming culture. For instance, the successful mod Counter-Strike was bought by Valve and became a standalone retail game. Still, it has not yet been seen in the purpose of advertising or branded entertainment. The Los Santos Pride parade mod is the first of its kind. Not only is it an innovation in terms of how it pushes the GTA 5 engine, it is a completely new way of working as it is produced together with the fan community of GTA 5.