Gerard Posted April 1, 2006 Share Posted April 1, 2006 Yes, GTA Chicago was an elaborate April Fools prank by our very own admin Chris, here at TheGTAPlace. Planned for quite a while, he copied the exact page (including code) from a previous GTA release announcement site, and edited the logo, the images (PS3, 2007). We spread the rumour through a few sites, added the fake announcement onto thegtaplace's homepage, and let the web do the work. Within 19 hours 22,000 people had visited the fake site, and dozens of websites, blogs and forums around the world had this announcement on. Many people were sceptical, many realised it was just a prank, yet many believed it was true. Here are some of the many sites that linked to gtachicago today: urgo.org, kotaku.com, wikipedia.org, ga-forum.com, qj.net, somethingawful.com, gamespot.com, gta.ag.ru, jogos.uol.com.br, playstation.com, digg.com, del.icio.us, live.com, xbox.com, ign.com, joystiq.com, hlfallout.net, gamespy.com, terra.com.br, vandal.net, gtasa.cz, teamxbox.com, nforce.nl, xbox-scene.com, whirlpool.net.au, spel.feber.se, neowin.net, ps3forums.com, evilgamerz.com, firingsquad.com, hinnavaatlus.ee, gtaforums.com, 1up.com, and many more. The aim was not to piss people off, but to instill a bit of excitement in the community. I personally hope that people are now wanting a new GTA more than before, and that perhaps Rockstar would be inspired by the sheer excitement that has surrounded a simple announcement of a new game, even though it was fake and not broadcast very far by us. The following 6 steps are what Chris went through to begin the foolery: The two domains were registered on the 2nd Feburary Later, he copied and pasted source code from GTA4.com's page, as it was parked at Register.com - this made it look as if Rockstar had parked gtachicago there as well for the average visitor. Chris went to archive.org and looked at the first version of the Official San Andreas site, took the source code and associated images. This formed the basis of the page, image sizes were all kept exactly the same to add to the authenticity. All that was needed was a font to write Chicago. An authentic 1930's font was hard to find, but he did find one, it wasn't the best but it didn't need to be, this after all was a joke. If it was too serious, perhaps worse things would have happened. Late on March 31st, he uploaded the site and posted the fake storyline he had written as a press release on TheGTAPlace.com We submitted the story to a few gaming sites (QJ, Kotaku etc) and the web did the rest. People saw it and posted it themselves, that was seen by many other people who then posted it everywhere else. Any comments, congratulations or anything positive please comment here. Anything negative, just don't bother. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tommy vercetti guy Posted April 1, 2006 Share Posted April 1, 2006 Yeah man, bitches got thier asses handed to them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.Spongerob. Posted April 1, 2006 Share Posted April 1, 2006 (edited) the homepages talkes about: chigaco the windy ciy why do they call it the windy city???? Edited April 1, 2006 by Bakkertje Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted April 1, 2006 Share Posted April 1, 2006 Funnily enough it's often quite windy there I believe. A quick update on the stats: 22 hours after launch and gtachicago has has nearly 28000 hits. It's officially everywhere! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.Spongerob. Posted April 1, 2006 Share Posted April 1, 2006 Funnily enough it's often quite windy there I believe.A quick update on the stats: 22 hours after launch and gtachicago has has nearly 28000 hits. It's officially everywhere! nice joke :P i went to that site myself couse i was that dumb that i nearly believed it :P P.S. sorry about my bad english i'm dutch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted April 2, 2006 Share Posted April 2, 2006 The updated first post of Xenon's contains my 6-step guide to creating your own fake GTA website. I strongly suggest you DON'T do it though, or if you do, just don't do it on such a big a scale as I did because it does cause a frenzy over gaming related websites. And Rockstar probably don't appreciate all the "is this real" emails Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C.O.D Posted April 3, 2006 Share Posted April 3, 2006 But man... Chris this is a really good prank. And they actually cant do anything like kill you (April Fools Day)... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted April 3, 2006 Share Posted April 3, 2006 Lol, on this one forum they're complaining that the hit counter goes up 2 or 3 hits when they refresh. They think I've rigged it. I don't think they realise how many major websites are linking it, nearly 50,000 unique visitors now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghost Posted April 3, 2006 Share Posted April 3, 2006 i hate to say it but i had to blink twice before i realised it was a prank. @everyone involved---well done never have i seen a prank as good as this before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gerard Posted April 3, 2006 Author Share Posted April 3, 2006 Yes let me point out to those speculating. Since midnight on the 31st March to 1st April, we have had 50,000 (fifty thousand) unique visitors to GTAChicago.com Some sites have reported that we've had that many hits, which counts every time a page is opened or image is displayed. We have actually had that many visitors, all with different IP addresses. Even if anybody visits twice, they are listed only once. The foolometer on the GTAChicago homepage is only a rough guide. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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