The main Grand Theft Auto games are developed, for the most part, in Scotland. So it shouldn’t surprise you too much to know that a district in GTA V — Hawick — is named after a small Scottish town. It sure surprised Hawick though.
In particular, it surprised Hawick councillor David Paterson, who the BBC reports is “absolutely disgusted” that his town is sharing its name with a fictional settlement that is in no way based on or reflective of the real place.
“I am absolutely disgusted — there is a lot of history and a lot of good things happening in the town,” he said. “We have got a lot of good things planned for this coming year. It is going to destroy the good reputation of the town.”
Bookmark this story, readers. So in 2019, when Hawick is a drug-addled shanty town, we can point to Paterson’s prophetic comments as proof that a game set in a fictional Los Angeles destroyed the standing of a small town half a world away.
Grand Theft Auto role ‘could destroy Hawick’s reputation’ [BBC]
Comments
10 responses to “Real Scottish Town Is In GTA V, Absolutely Hates It”
Well.. the Councillor should also note that without this article, only made an article by the fact that he was so disgusted to make a comment to the BBC, I would never have known it was a real town.
Can’t unsee it now… 🙂
Edit: And again.. this has been filed under PC… 🙂 lol
I’m guessing he’s only making a big deal out of this just to give the town some free advertising. I don’t think any rational-thinking person would be seriously offended by the use of a name and nothing more.
Not the first time this has happened. remember Altis is actually a scaled down version of the greek island of limnos and the people of the island took great offence to it.
its one of the reason why the devs were arrested for “spying”
Oh well, it was a nice town they used to have.
He’s a local city councillor. It’s his JOB to be disgusted by anything fun.
Do the Liverpool (UK) council worry about problems present in Liverpool (Sydney)? I wouldn’t imagine so. Would they be more concerned about a fictional city that just happened to be named “Liverpool”? If so, why?
Unless it’s a digital recreation of your town, it only shares a name, and that’s nothing to be concerned about.
I’m disgusted on behalf of the town of Hawick Minnesota, USA. A town so small it doesn’t even have it’s main cross-street on Street View. (Population 435)
https://maps.google.com.au/maps?q=Hawick+MN&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&sa=N&tab=wl
I’m disgusted that there’s no North Kilttown.
I’m disgusted at the lack of GTA: Radelaide city.
I’m disgusted that this is in the PC section.