Last Saturday, Money Gang’s Facebook page posted a tantalizing piece of artwork featuring The Game, in the style that’s come to symbolize Grand Theft Auto art. Along with the Grand Theft Auto 5 logo, the ESRB rating, and the Rockstar symbol, there was The Game in the center of the image mugging for the camera (well, if there was a camera that is).
The post had no other information describing the image, so naturally, the internet blew up with speculation, as the internet is wont to do. The possibilities were endless after all… well, maybe not endless, but the possibility that The Game would appear in the game (GTA V), and could in fact have a starring role in it certainly seemed to be highly likely.
It would not have been a huge shock after all, given The Game’s small role in GTA: San Andreas as Mark ‘B-Dup’ Wayne. The Game also made it clear back in November during an interview with Wired 96.5 that he had done some work with Rockstar on GTA V.
"They [Rockstar] called man, and we did a little bit of work with them," he told Wired 96.5, in reference to the next game in the Grand Theft Auto series (GTA V). "Once you in a video game, you struck gold, man."
Of course, ‘a little bit of work’ certainly wouldn't appear to be the major role that the cover art style artwork was hinting at, and was in fact more likely to be a reprisal of his role as B-Dup in the new game, which would make plenty of sense, given the setting of Los Santos and the main character’s past as a gangster.
As you'd expect, all that feverish excitement slowing simmered back down to a tepid boil as it was revealed that the artwork is only a fanmade piece from a poster named streethustla at gtaforums.com, who created several similar looking pieces of work with different images, and was not an official artwork created by Rockstar.
What The Game’s actual involvement in GTA V will be is still up for continued speculation, but as stated, it does appear he will have a role in GTA V regardless of the misleading artwork. Whether that’s a reprisal of his role as B-Dup, a new role in the game, or something solely on the musical end of the spectrum, we can only guess.
In the end, this whole saga is nothing more than a cautionary tale about the perils of jumping to conclusions at the mere sight of some artwork on someone’s official Facebook page, which you would think would come with some sort of description as to the origins of the artwork to stop the internet from blowing up, and saving a lot of news outlets from looking rather silly in the process (yeah, we posted it), but…I digress (and must end this run-on sentence).
With or without The Game, GTA V will be one heck of a ride when it releases later this year. That we can be certain of.
