Just wondering, because i can obviously look at sales for gta 1 and 2 and see it didnt sell close to the games after that, but how popular was the GTA series before GTA 3? Did a lot of people know about? did it have a niche fanbase that was really passionate about it? Did you play GTA before GTA 3?

Huge, I remember everyone used to talk about it when I was a kid, at a school gala a kid brought his ps1 along and was charging us $1 for 5 mins on GTA 1 xD I think my parents gave me $10 for the day as spending money and I gave it all to him so I could play it for as long as possible.

It was a semi-popular series--certainly not niche, but nowhere near one of the big hitters in the industry. It was on the level of, say, the original Killzone. GTA III is the one that rocketed the series to the top of the charts and the top of moral guardians' hit lists.

it wasnt that popular outside of a few really core gamers, not even close the difference is night and day. I played the original 2, wished i played the London one, which i think its high time to have another GTA NOT in the US. but they were good games

Gaming sales during the N64, PS1 one was about as healthy as it could get. GT had great sales in an era where no other racing games in its league outside of the fun kiddy games. It was wildly popular alongside Crash Bandicoot and plenty of other games.

It wasn't that popular. At least outside of PC. It was a novelty, but it wasn't HUGE. It wasn't until 3 that it really "blew up", which by the way pretty much sold the PS2 for a long while.

I remember me and my brothers spending hours playing GTA 1+2. We spent most time on GTA London. How patriotic of us. I didnt know if it was popular at the time. I knew it was not talked about like crash or spyro but a i knew enough people who had them.

Everyone i knew had GTA3 though. The groundwork GTA PS1 games set though can not be diminished. I never heard a bad word said against those games. Kinda the same story how cod got big. Keep releasing good games then one of them should explode.

It was honestly just another PC game in the vein of Midtown Madness and Need for Speed. But it was fun.

It was popular, but not nearly as popular as it is now. Driver came out later and was the bigger series. Once GTA3 was released on the PS2, tons of advertising, etc, the series became extremely popular.

Piracy on PC was so much easier than too. Everyone practically had the game downloaded lol.

The gaming market has grown since those days so GTA is obviously bigger.