I’ll be damned if I admit that I noticed it, or really cared about this sort of thing, but Rockstar has made the switch regardless. If it ever bothered you that Grand Theft Auto’s GPS counted distances in miles instead of kilometres, Rockstar has kindly granted you the option to switch to the metric system. Amazing.
Apparently this bothered some people. To the point where it must have been a requested option. Personally? It’s never bothered me. Probably because I grew up in the UK where distances and speeds are mostly measured in miles. I have a rough idea of those distances and how they convert. Maybe if I grew up in Australia, and had no idea how it all worked, I’d feel a little different.
Via Reddit
Comments
31 responses to “Hey! Australians Can Finally Use The Metric System In Grand Theft Auto V”
As long as they don’t switch to metric time I’ll be happy. http://i.imgur.com/4NPNaQr.png
Would it have really been that hard for someone at Kotaku to grab a proper screen capture rather than using that potato quality phone pic?
I mean stealing all your idea from reddit is one thing but can’t we have *some* original content?
Not everyone visits Reddit and the source is provided.
If this practice is considered stealing then the bulk of reddit is a freaking black market of information.
…that wasn’t what they said, at all. Rather, they implied that if a media company wants to maintain a reputation they’d be better off taking a few minutes to create their own media instead of shamelessly relinking a picture with terrible quality. A text-only article would’ve been cleaner than that terrible picture. Not as good as if they’d taken a few lousy minutes to create a clean image with the same information, before spreading that to the rest of their media network as a resource.
The implication is clear, but so was the implication of stealing, which was very much said.
Mark could of done that, but he came across the story via reddit obviously, so he extended it to Kotaku. In my opinion a half assed rip isn’t better than giving credit where credit was due.
You can cite your information source as Mark has, and provide better media without much effort. As I said, if the author couldn’t do that – and I understand they may not have a copy of the game to hand – then the article would’ve been more presentable with just the text.
Of course you can, but deciding to maintain the integrity of the source material is far from unprofessional.
A text only post is a fair compromise, but only if the visual material is inappropriate. While the picture is of low quality, it still conveys the intended point.
It’s inappropriate content for any site wanting to portray itself as professional. It’s a shitty, grainy, half-assed that’s been immediately ripped from the source and pasted to try to form an article.
Then again, maybe it IS appropriate for Kotaku.
Are you new here? These “In brief” interest pieces are a fairly old.
They should really update the site like the US, which does a better job of categorising these from articles. It might cut down on every freelance journalistic expert from comparing blatantly obvious filler and full article formats.
(But it is the internet)
@pinchie covered everything I would have said but I will add this, just for fun I timed myself grabbing a proper screen capture via Fraps.
It took less that three minutes.
That’s ok, there is a picture in the article.
And call me old fashioned, but I prefer the one that credits accordingly.
Just because it took you 3 minutes it doesn’t mean the same applies to Mark. Is he at work? Does he need to book some time on a platform being used by other journos just to take a pic? Wait till he gets home to take the picture? Who knows…
Seems the practical choice was made to me.
ha, cool.
I see why this is in the In Real Life section. GTA V is real life.
Oh and I prefer metric, I am Australian but I have an idea of how miles works. 6 miles = 10 (ish) kms right?
I’m old enough to remember the changeover to km, and the ads explaining the new signs with the ‘Red Rings’ around the new speed limits, but I much prefer to be able to select km and m in games.
a) I didn’t realise that this changed in recent history (quick web search says mid-70s) and b) I thought I was old, but you, wow, you’re old!
I did go hunting through the GTA menus for this back at launch so I’m very pleased about this!
First time I got into a car (in-game) it was the first thing I was looking for.
Is it on all versions of this game? PC, XB1, PS4, PS3, XB360?
I did look briefly at the Reddit original source, but reading through hundreds of troll comments for simple, clear information seems a bit silly. :-S
Happy about this! No idea why it wasn’t put in at release.
So the whole effing 6GB update was for that!!?
Bring back LCHC, but I guess with how brutal they treated the characters from Lost and the Damned, its pretty clear that Rockstar hate metal.
Don’t see the point in adding km if you still have to drive on the wrong side of the road.
Well one of the main characters is Canadian.
I’d give him money, Canadian money if needs be, if they added the old GTA4 radio as DLC. Sure beats this Shark Cash pay-to-win crap.
Europe drives on the right and uses km. And they alone outnumber driving on the left.
Sweet. Now I just need to wait for G2A to give me my money back so I can buy it again!
Is this option in the Ps3 version or just the Ps4 & PC ones?
Yay!
Mwuahahahahaha. *steeples fingers*
Soon. Soon we will stealth-convert the Americans to metric.
And when we are done… we shall move on to their guns, their cinnamon, and their putting sugar in everything. BWUAHAHAHA!
You have no idea how many Americans would openly celebrate the change to metric.
Heh. Well, it is half-way done already. Most folk in military, medical, science and engineering professions in the US use SI units by default. Many stubborn morons cling to Imperial – sorry, ‘US customary’ – as a point of jingoistic pride, to be defended against untrustworthy intellectualism in one of the more confusing and ironic instances of American Exceptionalism to persist today… but yeah. Professionals who want to get some shit done have integrated the conversion in their fields and gone about their business without bothering to try and convince backwards hicks to get on board for the sake of road signs and gas pumps.
Best comment I’ve seen all week