GTA VI takes over Miami: blimps, beach umbrellas and the Vice City logo on the arena, but the county is split

Vice City, the city of Grand Theft Auto VI, is the fictional version of Miami, and the game recreates recognisable places such as Ocean Drive, Brickell Avenue and Wynwood. In recent days the promotion has spilled off the screen: GTA-style cars and a large blimp bearing the words Vice City have been spotted around town, while chairs and umbrellas with the game's branding are arriving on South Florida beaches. Big ads have also appeared in Chicago and New York.

The symbol of the campaign is the Vice City logo installed on the roof of the Kaseya Center, the Miami-Dade County-owned arena where the Miami Heat play, with whom a themed collaboration is also on the way. The deal is worth $975,000: just under the one-million threshold below which the county mayor, Daniella Levine Cava, can sign without going through the commission. The mayor would now like to let Rockstar pay for promotional installations at the international airport, the port and on the public transport network too, with the possibility of wrapping Metromover and Metrorail cars in Vice City colours.

At the October 6 meeting, however, the proposal authorising multi-million negotiations found more critics than supporters. Commissioner René Garcia said the county was painting Miami as the murder capital, while his colleague Micky Steinberg added that, as a matter of principle, she did not think they should go ahead. The mayor's chief of staff, Chris Hudtwalcker, who is leading the talks with Rockstar, called the game a love letter to Miami, to grumbles from the chamber.

The deal was defended by commission chair Anthony Rodriguez, who sponsored the proposal: he said it is a work of fiction, that everyone in the community is an adult and knows it is only a game. As the proposal did not seem to have the votes to pass, before it could be rejected Commissioner Oliver Gilbert, who supports the deal, used a procedure to end the debate and defer the vote to the next meeting. The commission then voted to require that any deal with Rockstar above one million dollars come back to the chamber, a largely symbolic step because county rules already require it (statements paraphrased from English).

Levine Cava said negotiations will continue and that any agreement over one million will need the commission's approval. Meanwhile Vice City is already everywhere on the streets of Miami: Grand Theft Auto VI arrives on November 19 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.