Tell us your favourite Grand Theft Auto gaming memory and win a copy of GTA 6

Hello! This piece is part of our GTA Week coverage here on Eurogamer, as we explore all things Grand Theft Auto across the launch period of the wildly anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6. For more like this, see our GTA Week hub – or for the exact opposite, look out for our Not-GTA week of counterprogramming, running from 23rd November.

These are my favourite competitions to run on Eurogamer, so I’m glad to be able to announce a new one. We’d like you to share your favourite gaming memory related to playing a Grand Theft Auto game – any Grand Theft Auto game – in the comments below, and if we end up liking yours the most, we’ll give you a copy of GTA 6.

I love these competitions because they result in hundreds of funny, heartwarming and often poignant stories about playing games. We’ve done similar memory-offs for other major gaming franchises in the past: Street Fighter, The Legend of Zelda, Star Wars. We did one about Christmas. We even did one about Eurogamer for our 25th birthday. So it’s only right that we do one for arguably the biggest franchise in video games: Grand Theft Auto.

I’ll let this run over the weekend and put a deadline of Monday, 16th November at noon UK time on entries. I’ll comb through replies early next week in the interest of selecting a winner and giving them – you? – a copy of the game before (or as) GTA 6 releases next Thursday. I notify people using the email address associated with their Eurogamer commenting account, and reply in the comments as well, making it explicitly clear if you’ve won. Please keep an eye on this thread and your inbox because if I don’t hear back, I’ll offer the prize elsewhere.

With that said, let’s talk memories! I have a couple when it comes to Grand Theft Auto. My earliest memory is of a teenage me playing the first GTA at a friend’s house. In a convoluted 90s way, one friend had taken their PC to another friend’s house, where the three of us had assembled to play it. We’d take it in turns to burn around the top-down city, and when we weren’t at the controls, we’d still be active in the experience, with the huge paper map unfolded, looking for spray shops the player could nip into when chased by the police. It was like being the passenger in a car. I can picture now, almost 30 years later, vividly.

The other distinct GTA memory I have is of playing Vice City and San Andreas one summer after I’d broken my arm and leg. I jumped off a roof in Australia when I was drunk; I wouldn’t recommend it. Anyway, upon returning home, there wasn’t a lot I could do – the breaks were both on one side so I’d crutch around (they gave me a wooden crutch in Australia) like a pirate – so a friend and I spent that summer taking turns playing GTA. It’s all those shared moments laughing at Tommy Vercetti driving up staircases on vintage scooters that I remember, or CJ flapping his wooden-block hands around like paddles while gesticulating in cutscenes. Us just messing around. Friendship. That’s what remembering Vice City and San Andreas conjures for me.

But what about you – what do you remember about playing GTA games? Let your mind wander, let your mind remember, and thank you in advance for sharing your stories with us and everyone else. Have a lovely weekend.