Ever since the release of GTA III and the Insane Stunt Bonuses that could be achieved by completing certain jumps, people have been wanting to perform bigger and bigger stunts. The late Odie helped things along with his great little stunt park mod, while the inclusion of motorcycles in Vice City propelled the scene forward leaps and bounds. I even made a couple of videos myself before stunting really got popular (by today's standards they are both absolutely awful, but show just how far stunting has come since then).
 
GTA V has been out for 6 weeks now, and this has been ample time for stunters to familiarise themselves with the map, find some cool spots, and get used to using and hopefully not abusing Franklin's special ability, or not even using it at all to really impress. A few early videos set the bar fairly low, and more recent videos are now coming out looking pretty impressive. Without further ado, here's a roundup of some of the first and best stunt videos that have been made so far.

First up we have couple of great videos that were emailed into us from the Nomad Union crew:
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG_oJoxKQTw

Next up is a stunt montage from Ben Buja, whose name you may recognise from his many GTA IV stunt and blooper reels:
 

This one is from Dejv, returning to the scene after a two year break:
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A5REDUPSyQ

And finally one from SyperDimon:
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZMdpv6hMtg

If you want more, here's some links to other nice videos that have been released:

• Pro Rider BMX Stunt Montage and Adrenaline Online BMX Stunts from HDee.
• GTA 5 Stunt Paradise 2 and Stunt Paradise 3 from Japanese stunter cleanerviper.
• Stunt montages one, two, and three from another Japanese stunter GTADAICHI1990.
• Stunt montage by Dada9x9.

We'd like to post about community creations like these more often. So if you've created a stunt video, or anything else cool using GTA V be sure to let us know about it and if we like it we'll include it in our next post.

 
Rockstar have announced the first Snapmatic photo contest for GTAV, where you have a chance to win a Grand Theft Auto V prize pack that includes an iFruit phone case and phone decals plus an official GTAV tee and the sought-after Chop stash stuffed animal.
 
You have until Monday to get your entries in, Rockstar say they are looking for originality and inspiration, so be creative. All you need to do is tag any photos you want to enter with the #EpicPhotobomb hashtag, which you can do on the Social Club website. For full details on how to enter see the Newswire post.
 

Snapmatic photo-sharing from your in-game iFruit phone in GTAV and GTA Online makes it a cinch to snap and share that picturesque view from the peak of Mount Chiliad, the fifty car pile-up you engineered on the road to Fort Zancudo or that wild fistfight you stumbled into between Piswasser'ed derelicts at the local 24-7. Of course, all it takes is the work of one photobomber to drastically alter the outcome of whatever you were trying to capture - this shark interrupting Franklin's peaceful moment at sea being the perfect example.

Contest is void in certain countries and where prohibited. See www.rockstargames.com/socialclub/events for official rules and eligibility details.

Rockstar released some new official artworks earlier today. Technically they're not new, but until now we didn't have high resolution official desktop wallpapers of these. First up is Chop standing guard after tearing up some Balla scum, while owner Franklin deals with the FIB using his Heavy Sniper.

See more on our GTAV Artwork page.

Take Two released its second quarter 2014 earnings report today, in it they revealed that they've sold-in (shipped to retailers) 29 million units of GTA V so far in the first 6 weeks. To put things in perspective, this is more copies than GTA IV sold-in in its entire lifetime.
 
The press release went on to mention more records, including those we posted about last month:

We believe Grand Theft Auto V is the fastest-selling entertainment release in history, grossing over $ 800 million in retail sales during the first 24 hours after launch and over $ 1 billion in only three days. Grand Theft Auto V became available for digital download through the PlayStation Network on the day of release and became the biggest release ever on the platform. In addition, the Games on Demand release of the title on Xbox LIVE became the highest grossing day 1 and week 1 release in the platform’s history.

For most games, breaking the 1 million sales figure is a HUGE achievement, for Rockstar this would have been an unmitigated disaster. Today's announcement means that GTAV is now placed 7th on the list of best-selling games of all time.

Impressive stuff.

Rockstar have finally released the free iFruit app for Android today. The delayed release comes 6 weeks after its iOS counterpart, and unsurprisingly because of this many fans are still angry and are venting their frustration with negative reviews. Many simply can't understand what has taken so long, saying the app is clearly a port of the iOS app (for whatever reason it does appear that Rockstar chose to ignore Android guidelines - we see the iOS tab bar in the screenshots too). A number also appear to be frustrated by the app crashing on start up, but these kind of reviews are common among Android apps, and may not be entirely Rockstar's fault.
 
With many now having already finished the game, the iFruit app may offer little to no use now, with benefits such as training Chop somewhat pointless. Despite these criticisms, not everyone is unhappy. 5-star ratings are quickly coming in faster now and the rating is starting to look a little more healthy now. Remember you can also use the app to modify your cars in game, and get your personalised plate. You can also access the Social Club and stay up to date on LIfeInvader. iFruit is free on the Play Store and requires Android 3.0 or above, you'll also need around 250MB of free space on your device.
 

 
GTA V Themes for PS3 and Xbox 360
GTA V themes and avatars are now available to spice up your Xbox 360 Dashboard or PlayStation 3's XMB.
 

The PSN Premium Theme ($ 1.99) has a rotating selection of the game's official artwork, including the trio pictured above as well 13 additional selections featuring Michael, Franklin, Trevor and a few of their friends, family and acquaintances. PS3 fans can also now pick up any one of these 10 new PSN Avatars for $ 0.49/£0.21/€0.25 each.

Xbox 360 users can also theme their dashboard with background artwork of Blaine County, South Los Santos and Vinewood along with Friends slot vignettes of some notable locations like the Del Perro Pier, Paleto Forest and downtown Los Santos Ammu-Nation. This Xbox 360 dashboard theme is available for $ 2.99.

 
In case you missed it, Rockstar have posted a quick update on the state of GTA Online, including the GTA$ Stimulus Package that was promised. Read below for details on upcoming features and additions.
 

THE GTA$ STIMULUS PACKAGE
We know many of you are anxiously waiting for us to show you the GTA$ Stimulus Package money we announced a couple weeks back. As mentioned in that post, we of course want to ensure that game progress loss issues are sufficiently sorted before distributing the GTA$ to everyone. We have a few more tweaks and fixes to make in a new title update that will hit sometime next week and then we will distribute the cash.
 
THE BEACH BUM PACK
Coming in early November will be the first add-on content update, the Beach Bum Pack which will bring all-new beach themed vehicles and new weaponry that you’ll be able to use in both GTA Online and Story Mode. Plus new customization options for your GTA Online character including new tats, hairstyles and more. We’ll also be adding lots of brand new action-packed Jobs to play with Gang Attacks, Survivals, Last Team Standings, Parachutes, Deathmatches and Races that will have you bloodying up the waters and coastlines of the finest beach resorts across Los Santos and Blaine County.
 
THE CONTENT CREATOR
We are also working to bring you the debut of the first part of the GTA Online Content Creator this fall – giving players the ability to craft, publish, rate and play custom-made Deathmatch and Race Jobs. We’ll be keeping our eye open for exceptional ones that we’ll be stamping as ‘Rockstar Verified’ and will be featuring them here at the Newswire and as part of forthcoming GTA Online Social Club Events. Both the Content Creator and the Beach Bum Pack are free.
 
SOCIAL CLUB EVENT WEEKENDS
Starting in November will be the first Grand Theft Auto Online Social Club Event weekends which will bring special rewards and bonuses ranging from limited-edition in-game Event Crate Drops to in-game discount specials and even a special new GTA Online live-stream show hosted by Rockstar at the Social Club Events page and Rockstar Games Twitch page – plus prize pack giveaways of hard to find GTAV gear and more.
 
Stay tuned as we hope to have more information with more details and specific timings on these content updates as well as on GTA Online Heists and the new GTA Online Capture the Flag mode to share with you next week. We will also have initial details on more additional content coming for both Story Mode and GTA Online in the next few weeks.

As everyone is aware, the launch of GTA Online did not go as smoothly as we all hoped, thankfully though, Rockstar have been working around the clock to get all the issues straightened out. After three patches, things seem to be looking much, much better now, but by no means flawless.
 
Today, Rockstar have announced that they will be giving everyone who has played GTA Online this month a free GTA$ 500,000 bonus to their account, as an apology for not being able to handle the sheer popularity of the game. To maintain some sort of balance in the game with this huge injection of cash to everyone, Rockstar will be making two deposits of GTA$ 250,000 spread over a couple of weeks. There will also be a fourth patch released to facilitate the receipt of these additional funds, as well as to fix a few remaining connectivity issues.
 

• You must play or have played Grand Theft Auto Online at any time during the month of October 2013 in order to qualify for the GTA$ 500,000 deposit in your in-game bank account.
• Players will first have to install a forthcoming GTAV title update which we expect to happen next week. That title update (1.04) is expected to fix the remaining instances of issues that have caused vehicle purchase loss and will also enable the functionality through which we’ll be providing this GTA$ stimulus cash to players.
• We will announce at the Rockstar Newswire when each deposit is made.
• Each of the two GTA$ 250,000 deposits will be made by Rockstar and should automatically appear in the in-game GTA Online bank accounts of eligible players. Beyond downloading the forthcoming title update mentioned above, there should not be any additional special action required by eligible players to redeem. 

Full details on the Newswire.

Rockstar have finally let us in on some more details for GTA Online, including the all important question: "when will we be able to play!?"
 
A small patch will be rolling out on Xbox Live and PSN servers starting early morning in the US, that's from about 7 AM EST, so from 12 PM in the UK, early afternoon in the rest of Europe. Once this has been downloaded you should be able to access it. Remember you can jump into online by selecting the 4th (bottom quadrant) in your character selection wheel. Many people have been asking when GTA Online takes place, some were incorrectly told it follows on from GTA V, it doesn't, it is set before GTA V. Rockstar have now confirmed the events take place a few months before GTA V's story starts.
 
There's a lot more information Rockstar have provided, which is quoted below.
 

Home and Garage Security

• There’s plenty of havoc and treachery you can cause out in the open world of course, but in order to prevent some really annoying “griefing”, we’ve designed house party invitations specifically to be a friendly social affair where players can visit each other’s pads without fear of having them ruined or losing their hard-earned vehicles in the process. If someone invites you into their property, then it is considered a friendly visit and you will not be able to shoot up their place or steal their cars from their garage. By the way, in any given lobby, if you and another player own the same piece of property, you will each be able to enter your own personal instance of that property at any given time. You will also be able to enter each other’s instance of that property if you exchange and accept an invite. This way, multiple instances of ownership of the same property within a lobby can co-exist.

GTA$ and Fair Play

• To allay some concerns we’ve heard on this subject, we can assure you that the game is designed such that the option of purchasable GTA$ should not disrupt the playing field – and there are a few mechanics in place to help ensure that. All players still have to rank up with Reputation Points (RP) in order to get access to purchase high-end items.  No one can begin GTA Online and simply spend a lot of money out of the gate to get a leg up. You will have to earn your stripes and play to unlock access to the aspirational clothes, guns and other items. Please also remember that in GTA Online, hustling to afford the finer things by earning GTA$ doing robberies, stick-ups, winning races and other profitable activities is a fun gameplay experience rather than ever being a ‘grind’. As we mentioned on Wednesday, we will constantly tweak all areas of the game to make it play fairer and iron out any balancing problems (while fixing all the other problems we encounter!), but we really need your help in figuring out what those issues are. So please work with us on that!

An Ever-Growing Collection of Jobs

• Grand Theft Auto Online is a long-term GTA experience that you can expect to be built-upon, to grow and to evolve in many ways in the coming weeks, months and beyond. As part of that, there will be a massive amount of Jobs available to play over time as we will be regularly adding new ones for you to enjoy. Additionally, you will soon be helping to add content to the game world yourselves, by creating custom Race and Deathmatch Jobs through the Content Creator tool which we plan to release this fall. Grand Theft Auto Online is a collaborative project between Rockstar and all GTA players worldwide, so expect that we’ll effectively be working on it together from day one. As a very small example, the Crew Hierarchies feature that was introduced a few weeks back on Social Club was a direct result of popular fan feedback from last year – and we’ll be looking at the GTA Online community’s feedback, input and ideas constantly to help inform how the game itself will grow and evolve. As mentioned last week, we’ll be looking closely at your feedback emails sent to [email protected] and in the GTA Online Suggestion Box board at the forthcoming Social Club Forums. We’re very much looking forward to welcoming you as active participants in the world of GTA Online starting tomorrow.

The Character Creation System

• The hereditary-based character creation system of Grand Theft Auto Online allows for a multitude of options to create your avatar that will then inhabit the online world of Los Santos & Blaine County.  Choose your gender then decide on your mother and father.  From there, you can choose to give one parent genetic dominance or leave them more evenly matched. The choice is yours. Next, you adjust a set of lifestyle variables which help determine your character’s appearance and starting stats. Decide how much sleep he/she gets, how much partying they indulge in, how much honest work versus illegal activity, and more. Essentially, you can adjust the genetics to wind up with a fresh faced lad or lass or a grizzled, haggard degenerate or anywhere in between! You’ll also be able to preview your end result in real time all throughout to ensure you’re satisfied before putting your character on a direct flight to LS. Of course, once you’re out and about in the open world, you can further customize your character with haircuts, clothing and accessories to suit your tastes.

 
Finally, there's some exclusive content available for those of you who are Social Club members, which should be everyone by now. Read on for details on what you can get access to.
 

• In Grand Theft Auto Online, Social Club members get access to weaponry and vehicular unlocks, a whole new suite of Crew features to represent and coordinate with your squad, and special tools to get the most out of Rockstar Jobs and user-created Jobs when the Content Creator tool launches this fall. Check out the updated www.rockstargames.com/V/socialclub for an overview of GTA Online Social Club features including new Crew customization possibilities like Crew colors and Emblem vehicle decals, Crew messaging options, and Open or Closed Crew Sessions. Plus unlocks like the Sawed-Off Shotgun, the Annis Elegy RH8 and the John Marston Parent option to do the Marston family proud in the modern day West. Also stay tuned for info later in October about the very first GTA Online Social Club Events which will have special Event Playlists curated by Rockstar, reserved in-game license plate awards for top players, and more. So, if you haven’t joined, we recommend doing so!