Grand Theft Auto IV was released worldwide for Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and PC in April 2008. The target audience is perceived to be those over 18 due to its violent and graphic content, however many under 18 players also enjoy the game. Key features include playing as the main character Niko Bellic to complete missions around the open world city of Liberty City using various vehicles and weapons while avoiding police. The game has sold over 17 million copies as of 2010 and had two episodic expansions released.

1. Release Date
The game was released on all formats worldwide in April 2008
Target audience
The target audience can be perceived in two ways. Due to the 18 rating of the game its
automatically assumed that this game will be targeted at over 18s only due to its
violent, graphic, sexual, drug taking and lingual content. Furthermore because some of
the content mentioned this game would mostly appeal to males. However going back to
my first point this game may have a rating of 18 but this does not stop under 18s playing
them and being arguably being GTA IV’s most popular buyers. This has been the case
way before GTA IV and Rockstar will have realised this and will probably change or
develop their games in such a way that it doesn’t lose the interest of this target
audience. So in conclusion it can be said that despite content put into the game rockstar
are still aiming at under 18s
Platforms
The game can be played on the following platforms, Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC
Key features
You take on the role of one main character who has a huge story behind him and the
main aim is to complete the main missions in the game to uncover and solve his story.
Missions are located all over the fictional world of liberty city which is a full living
breathing world which you can roam around all day or all night long. There are many
way to do this, you can either get around by foot, car, bike, helicopter or boat. To get
hold of vehicles you have to steal them. You can hijack cars that already have people in
them or you can steal unattended cars which you then have to hotwire. You can carry a
wide range of weapons to help complete your missions, protect yourself or simply to kill
random pedestrians. Doing this will attract police attention which is another key feature
of the game. Your actions can attract different amounts of police depending on your
actions and its important its an important aim to not get arrested. Weapons in the game
can range from your fist to handguns, to semi automatics, to full automatics to grenades
and rocket launchers. You have a cell phone in this game which also plays a key part as it
helps you to do missions as people who give you missions will call you to do so or vice
versa. On this cellphone you can also call friends where you can take part in lots of
different activities such as bowling, darts and pool to name a few. You can ring
girlfriends where you can take them out on dates also. Furthermore on this cell phone
you can enter certain numbers that will activate cheats depending on the combination
of numbers, cheats are also a key feature of the game which will be explained later. For
the first time in the gta series there is an online multiplayer mode. In multiplayer players
from across the world can take part in range of different multiplayer modes such as
single player modes, team modes, co-operative modes, race modes or competitive
modes. Cheat codes are key feature to the game but they are not a necessity. The game
can be played and completed without cheats but they have been put in by rockstar so
players can help complete the game or simply have more fun. Cheats can range from

2. replenishing health to changing the weather. There are other key features in the game
that need to be completed in order to complete the game 100%. These include, drug
deliveries, stunt jumps, vigilante missions, assassination missions, races, killing liberty
city’s police’s most wanted list, random pedestrians mission (random pedestrians who
will give a mission if you encounter them), take part in activities such as pool and darts
and “stevies car thefts and exotic exports”.
Current sales figures
On 3 March 2010, Take-Two Games announced that Grand Theft Auto IV has sold 15
million units globally. On 9 June 2010, Take-Two announced that Grand Theft Auto IV
had sold over 17 million copies.
Extra episodes/spin offs
Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost And Damned and Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad Of Gay
Tony
Synergy and convergence
Following a partnership between Rockstar Games and Amazon.com, players are able to
purchase real world MP3s through GTA IV's in-game mobile phone Players are able to
mark radio songs that they like by dialing ZIT-555-0100 on Niko's phone. They will then
receive a text message providing the name of the song and the artist. If a player is
registered on Rockstar's 'Social Club' website he or she will also receive a real world e-
mail with a link to an Amazon.com playlist where all of the player's marked songs will be
listed and available to purchase. Furthermore as previously mentioned GTA IV has
content available to download which would be a form of convergence