The marketing for Grand Theft Auto 6 is ramping up, and Miami is becoming more and more covered in advertisements for Vice City, the setting of Rockstar’s upcoming open-world sequel. Now one of the people responsible for installing some of these ads is apparently out of a job. He claims he was fired just for sharing an early look at the words “Vice City” plastered on some beach chairs.
Earlier this month, video footage and screenshots began spreading on social media showing Vice City- and GTA 6-branded chairs and umbrellas on a beach in Miami, Florida. The beach furniture is part of a larger marketing push, which also includes blimps and an NBA game, happening across the city that inspired Vice City. But the man who allegedly recorded the initial video that went viral among GTA fans got in trouble.
TikTok user Graham Simmon posted a new video (via Dexerto) explaining the fallout:
“A few days ago, I posted a video where I was unboxing [these GTA 6] chairs on the beach,” said Simmon on October 20. “All the chairs, umbrellas, cabanas. I posted it; it had less than 1,000 views, and I was told to take them down. And unfortunately for me, people took those and posted them all over the internet, all over Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and it went kind of viral.”
According to Simmon, the company he was working for “didn’t like that,” and he was fired. “So yeah, basically GTA 6 cost me my job.”
Simmon, who says he was new and wasn’t told that he wasn’t allowed to record and share footage of the chairs, isn’t too mad about the whole ordeal. In the description of his TikTok video explaining his firing, he added that he understood it was “his fault” and explained he wasn’t “blaming the company.” Instead, he just wanted to share what he considered a “funny story.”
Grand Theft Auto 6 arrives on November 19 on PS5 and Xbox.