Join The Community
A UK politician says you probably shouldn't expect the government to be hyping up the release of GTA 6 the way France did for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, even if it should be doing more.
Speaking to Ian Murray – current Minister of State for Creative Industries, Media and Arts as well as the MP for Edinburgh South – on The Game Business, host Chris Dring mentions the French government championing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 after it became a breakout hit in 2025. He notes that we don't really see the UK championing its successes in the games industry in the same way – given that Rockstar with GTA, Red Dead Redemption, Playground Games with Forza Horizon, and Rocksteady with the Batman Arkham series all hail from the UK – asking if it's something Murray thinks the government should be doing more for.
"100%. And this is something we're trying very hard to do," Murray explains, pointing out that in terms of cultural impact, the UK has worldwide influence – citing that you'll see football strips from Premier League teams all over the world. "If we were the US, we'd be puffing out our chests, putting up the flags and marching up and down the main street, championing what we do," Murray adds, "We just have traditionally not done that from a cultural perspective."
He explains, "I suppose part of the reason that we have our industrial strategy and the creative industries being a key part of one of those eight sectors is to say, you know, the government's backing the sectors, let's go and puff our chests out and try and be a little bit more bombastic about how good we are at this stuff and sell ourselves a bit better." Both Murray and Dring say it's more of a British trait to undersell or be a bit self-deprecating when it comes to successes.
Of course, when you're the government, the optics of hyping up a game is very different when it's something more artistic and tame like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 vs. a series that has been a controversy magnet since it was first introduced. Plus, in this recent era where Rockstar seemingly has all of its studios on one project – see Red Dead Redemption 2 – GTA 6 is probably also an American, Indian, Australian, and Canadian game too.
