While planners imagine and build the social virtual world of Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, media are taking a role in a virtual world that already exists… that of Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto.

And thanks to the enthusiasm of Gabriel Jensen Cavallaro, a junior engineer at E24 – a sister brand of VG – the Norwegian tabloid has discovered it has a place in that world.

A taxi driver in the newest Grand Theft Auto version, he has discovered a new “alternate reality” of his own workplace, an office building covered with the logos of VG –recognisable and famous logo in Norway – which provides an office for players working as journalists inside the game.

In an INMA audio and video innovations blog, head of video innovations Camilla Brække tells how VG got “inside” what has long been a billion-dollar industry.

“The loot box market - in-game purchase of virtual clothes, skins and items – is booming,” she says. “Its value is estimated at US$17.82 billion and is set to surpass US$20.3 billion in 2025.”

GTA – known as a game where you drive around doing bad things, “such as shooting people or running away from the police” – is one of the world’s most popular multi-player action-adventure games.

Cavallaro joins with players from all over the world in GTA V in role-play: people work as taxi drivers, police officers, car sales people or even towing wrecked cars with tow trucks. And players also work as news reporters.

“I have played GTA RP for around 15 or 20 hours in total,” he says. “When working as a taxi driver, my goal is to make money so that I can buy luxuries such as cars, motorcycles, and properties. I can do this both by driving PC-controlled characters or other players.”

There are lots of different RP communities inside GTA, many of which are international.

Cavallaro checked out one community called TigerstadenRP, a Norwegian community with its own developers that work on implementing different functionalities into the game.

Within GTA, Cavallaro discovered a new alternate reality of his own workplace – an office building covered with VG logos in which players work as journalists inside the game.

“The alternate reality version GTA’s VG has nothing to do with people employed by VG or our news production,” says Brække. “VG in GTA is created solely by gamers participating in role play, and has a life of its own.”

Cavallaro discovered Tigerstaden had implemented its own VG app. As a player in GTA, you have a cellphone, and the gaming version of VG (a VG news app) is accessible.

In the VG app within the game, there are articles written by other players working at VG within the game. These articles can be about all kinds of situations, such as announcing a new police chief or news about a major incident. The articles contain a title, picture, and some text.

“GTA V has around 80,000 to 150,000 concurrent players every day – across GTA RP and normal GTA V – that play through Steam (a video game client). This is not counting the number of players that are playing through Rockstar Games’ own client,” Cavallaro says.

It was from within Tigerstaden that Cavallaro discovered the VG building and the VG app. To add VG into the game, the community had to import a so-called ‘MLO’ and customise it so that it would look and feel like VG.

“An MLO is a GTA interior that is created in a programme called CodeWalker,” Cavallaro explains. “This allows you to make and edit interiors. An interior is a unique thing that makes your GTA server look different from others. Another example could be that you download a restaurant MLO and make it look like McDonald’s.”

In addition to the VG building and news stories on the in-game phone, VGTV is also in the game. There are even in-game press conferences from VGTV held by ‘police chief in Oslo, Kyrre Abrahamsen,’ who speaks in Norwegian.

The way the GTA press conferences work is that in-game journalists record their screens, at press conferences or other similar occasions, and then upload the footage to YouTube. There is currently no way to display video within the game. The uploaded footage is then shared in a specific channel that all players can find on the Tigerstaden Discord server.

Discord, a chat app similar to programmes such as Skype or TeamSpeak, or professional communication platforms like Slack, is geared specifically toward video game players, providing them with ways to find each other, coordinate play, and talk while playing. It supports video calls, voice chat, and text, allowing users to get in touch however they please.

“Feeling old yet,” asks Brække? “It remains to be seen how the metaverse will play out and how journalism will fit into the new reality. When product director of VG, Ola Stenberg, heard about this, he shared it with all employees in VG. Staff were fascinated to learn about a world few people know about.

“The funny thing is that, when we talk about these virtual realities as something new, we sound old to those who have this as their social arena,” Stenberg says. “Hundreds of millions of hours are spent in games and social platforms without us being a part of it. I’m not saying that we should go into the fantastic role-play that already exists, but we need to understand better how we can be a part of platforms where current and future users spend much more time than on our news sites.”