Grand Theft Auto V Online: Known world; unknown Elements

One of the biggest computer game of all time, Grand Theft Auto V, recreated a virtual city very much like Los Angeles in the name of Los Santos, completed with similar landmarks, weather, houses and of course, all kind of exotic cars. After completing the game with a narrative involving three main characters for about 60 hours, players can still go online to play Grand Theft Auto Online, in which players around the world enter Los Santos in various playing sessions to either play against each other or as team, participating in various heists to make big money, where one can purchases ever increasingly luxurious properties or automobiles, even military grade weapons and transportation to create a crime empire. Of course the underlying narrative of GTAV is still the American Dream, albeit achieving it virtually in the form of crime underworld like a Godfather. There is a meaning in making it in New York and another about making it in Los Angeles: the glitz and glamour of the movie industries, the porn capital, the hedonistic attitudes, sunshine and palm tree paradise. One ditches the hard working and uptight East Coast to finally arrive to paradise on earth in the west, the ultimate westerly point in western civilisation, from which at this point onward if one keep moving westward is beginning to get back to the East, the Orient, across the Pacific to Asia. The players of the game, after the baptism of the narrative, are familiar with all the corners of the city of Los Santos, probably more so than the real Los Angeles, the virtual city is a virtual distillation of a certain essences and imaginaries of the real city, and make full use of such elements such as the weather, palm trees and landscapes to remind the gamers they are in dreamland. The simulation of sex and drug activities and the thrill of doing crime without the price of paying for it in real life add more to a fantasy in real time. As the player progress in gaining the virtual worldly riches, it seems that all that can be done is done, the been there, done it attitude is probably what the veteran GTA Onliner's state of mind is. The one single unknown element is the strangers that enter your session of the online world. While the exchanges are limited to hunting, chasing each other with heavy fire arm and chatting with keyboard text or even a mic, there is always a thrill and uncomfortable tension in meeting avatars or hearing voices from afar, which you know comes from a real person behind the computer screen at another corner of our real globe. One can join a team of strangers to participate in a game of shooting, heist or auto race, then again it is as far as the relationship go for me, I hardly have to the energy or interest in knowing the person behind in deeper ways, simply because we know that we enter that GTAV Online world for fun and even relaxation and not for serious social encounter. Now what if there is a GTAV Version of a game tailored for women, say online shopping game that girls and women like to play but get actual products as score? Considering the gender bias of male and female gamer will that open up a different social sphere? When Mark Zuckerberg purchased the Oculus Rift VR goggle company, may be he has something similar in mind, where the social platform of Facebook can extend to an online virtual reality world like the GTAV Online, and people exchange further details about their lives instead of just bullets and car collisions. Will that happen and will that work?

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