One in four. That’s roughly how many British adults in a new YouGov poll said they’d have some kind of problem with their partner dating someone in a video game. And the timing is hard to ignore, because GTA 6 arrives in November with a romance at its center.
The pollster asked 4,000 British adults in September whether dating in a video game counts as cheating. Around 6% said yes. Another 19% said it wasn’t cheating but they still wouldn’t be okay with it.
For something that amounts to two sets of polygons getting close, that’s a lot of people bothered.
The gender split is wide
Women were much less comfortable with it than men. Only 4% of men called it cheating, compared with 7% of women. The gap gets bigger in the “not cheating, but not okay” group: 13% of the men asked landed there, against 24% of the women.
The BBC covered the poll under a question headline, asking whether you can cheat on someone with a video game character. Players didn’t love that framing.
“No, video game characters are not real, get a grip ffs!” said Stetson Spatula on X. Another X user asked: “Can you get arrested for murdering someone on call of duty?”
A lot of the pushback pointed at The Sims, where your Sims marry, raise kids, chase careers and redecorate the house for years. People have been roleplaying domestic life in games for a long time, so the panic over GTA 6 struck many players as selective outrage.
What Jason and Lucia can do
The game follows dual protagonists Jason and Lucia, a Bonnie and Clyde-style couple, and their relationship drives the whole thing. The recent launch trailer included three steamy intimate scenes in the shower. According to previews, the pair can kiss at the touch of a button and walk around holding hands. Screenshots suggest beach dates and shopping trips are on the table too, though that’s an inference from images, not a feature list.
The detail that’s confirmed comes from Rockstar itself: the relationship can blossom or wilt depending on how quickly you text back on the in-game phones. Leaving someone on read now has consequences in Vice City.
You can skip the romance
This isn’t the first time GTA 6 has run into the cheating question. In August, a wave of angry spouses on social media said the relationship mechanic was so detailed that it amounted to cheating on a real-life partner, and something worth breaking up over. On TikTok, a number of worried people said they wouldn’t let their partner play the game at all.
Rockstar has been clear that you don’t have to engage with any of it. Jason and Lucia want a relationship when the game starts, but the player has to actively pursue it. If you don’t, they won’t be head over heels for each other, though they’ll still have each other’s backs when it matters most. Go all in on the power couple angle and you’ll likely get more out of the game.
Rob Nelson, co-studio head at Rockstar North, described what that feels like in an interview.
“When you bring them together, it feels like you’re a steward of their relationship, and you feel protective of them as a unit,” Nelson said. “But this is something we did not know when we started, and it really had to be something we felt our way through. But I will say that whether you’re getting in trouble, or you’re running from the cops, or getting in a car, or waiting for the other one”
He went on: “playing as them together feels very cool. It feels like you’re taking care of them, if that’s something you’re into.”
Rockstar is pushing its marketing hard ahead of next month’s release. Last week, real cars modified to look like GTA vehicles were driven around Miami.
