Daily Star pays out for false GTA story

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 4 October, 2010

Rockstar wins after GTA Rothbury claim.

Rockstar Games has accepted substantial damages after the Daily Star newspaper made up a false Raoul Moat story.

The Star, owned by Richard Desmond's Express Newspapers, published libellous accusations when it claimed that Rockstar planned to launch a GTA game based on gunman Raoul Moat.

The paper made up a game called Grand Theft Auto Rothbury and claimed it would be based on the Northumberland shootings.

The Star even went to a grieving relative of one of Moat's victims for a response to the fictional title.

In the article the paper said the people behind the production of the game were "questionable idiots" who were making money out of other people's misery. It published a lengthy apology soon after, but by then the damage, for many, had been done.

Take 2's lawyer told the ruling judge that the Daily Star failed to contact the publisher before running the story, according to a report from The Guardian.

She said: "The defendant now accepts that Rockstar Games never had any intention to create such a video game at any time. The story was entirely false."

The amount of money paid to Rockstar was undisclosed, but we do know Express was ordered to pay Rockstar's legal costs. A spokesperson for the media group apologised for the upset and damage caused. It described the incident as a mistake.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (57) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • McLovin85 #1 2 years ago

    If anyone has seen 'The Wire' then they will know exactly how journalists just make crap up and hope no one finds out but the bigger the lie the better your cover story needs to be. In this case no one will be winning a Pulitzer price...

  • geeza2020 #2 2 years ago

    "In the article the paper said the people behind the production of the game were "questionable idiots" who were making money out of other people's misery"

    Funny, I always thought that was exactly what the tabloids do.

  • Goodfella #3 2 years ago

    Good, scumbag red tops deserve everything they get.

  • optimusprym8 #4 2 years ago

    I always thought all stories in tabloids were entirely false

  • bad09 #5 2 years ago

    British media is such a joke. Why people still buy "news"papers is beyond me.

  • dsmx #6 2 years ago

    Well at least everyone knows what's in the red top newspapers is a load of crap, unlike the daily mail where people read it and think it's the truth.

  • optimusprym8 #7 2 years ago

    @bad09 - only the tabloids, same as National Enquirer in the US. It's the same people who read these as those who watch x-Factor, believe Jerry Springer is real etc.

  • RobotRocker #8 2 years ago

    From the Gruaniad article

    It should be noted that the Star, owned by Richard Desmond, has a history of publishing false stories and carrying apologies afterwards.

    Heh, sticking the boot in.

  • Markitron #9 2 years ago

    My mother/sister both buy these terrible newspapers/magazines and I just cant figure out why. Retarded opinion piece's and pictures of famous ppl without makeup on. The kind of person that believes that kind of thing must be too stupid to figure out how stupid they are.

  • DDevil #10 2 years ago

    I thought this had been settled out of court the same week it all went down.

  • sfp_noodle #11 2 years ago

    I'm currently studying Journalism at Uni and one of the ground rules is that you don't write or publish anything without a source. Why the hell this was still published is beyond me. It's common knowledge that newspapers try to intrude with every new GTA release but this is a new low. GTA has never and will never be based around factual events of any kind. Hopefully this will shut the tabloids up for all future releases.

  • Augmentation #12 2 years ago

    This whole debacle just shows how news/journalistic non-gaming media views video games: either games are childrens' play things or they're made and played by a bunch of pathetic losers with nothing better to do. If the current publication in question had any respect for video games, they wouldn't have even considered talking about such a game (not without talking to the developer, at least). I always thought journalists had some sort of code of honour they were meant to follow (at least a pretty loose code - one that includes "research" at very least).

  • richardiox #13 2 years ago

    The tabloid news is truly the lowest of the low. I would have no qualms in terrorising anyone employed within that industry. Subhuman scum and responsible for more of societies ills than people imagine.
    Edited by richardiox at 04/10/10 @ 15:00

  • Skooch #14 2 years ago

    "@bad09 - only the tabloids, same as National Enquirer in the US. It's the same people who read these as those who watch x-Factor, believe Jerry Springer is real etc."

    Yes, I imagine lots of 12yr old x-factor fans read tabloids regularly.

    EDIT: For quotation marks.
    Edited by Skooch at 04/10/10 @ 15:05

  • Cherub007 #15 2 years ago

    Around 70 per cent of stories in national newspapers nowadays come from news agencies, who basically scour local papers/ the rumour mill/ anything they can think of to try and come up with something the nationals will buy. The public at large never hears about these organisations and the stories they come up with are re-written to the house style of the paper they appear in (the exact same copy can be sent to The Star as to The Guardian and end up looking remarkably different). But as it's the papers themselves who, legally speaking, publish the incorrect copy, they are the ones who can be targeted in a lawsuit. I could be wrong, but this thing has agency fuck up written all over it.

    Oh, and +1000 to geeza2020. Magnificent.

  • RM2KMaster #16 2 years ago

    This article put a smile on my face. That'll show the fucking morons who write articles for such shit-rags.

  • Smoped #17 2 years ago

    Well, whaddayaknow? Sometimes good guys do win...

  • LazyNinjaUk #18 2 years ago

    Fuck me this has to be the most ludicrous story I've read this year, I honestly don't know who is thicker: Daily Star readers or writers...

    I'm also going to call out a case of "pot calling kettle black" in regards to Daily star writers calling Rockstar games "questionable idiots", generally this term would be reserved for someone who fabricates a completely ridiculous claim for nefarious purposes, a claim that is not only without a valid source but only truly idiot people would believe.
    Edited by LazyNinjaUk at 04/10/10 @ 15:35

  • Nuada #19 2 years ago

    @Markitron

    Your sister is your mother? Now there's a story for the Star :p

  • darth_paul #20 2 years ago

    as a professional "journalist", thats the lowest you can fall. Whoever works at these kind of papers is trash, or else they wouldnt be working there. The difference between them and a prost**** is non-existent.

  • Soton4084 #21 2 years ago

    Serves them right!

  • kangarootoo #22 2 years ago

    @sfp_noodle

    I guess your tutors are teaching you how the job SHOULD be done, but some elements of the paper business see fines for false stories as a business cost. Selling papers is their business, not providing news. Good luck in journalism, it can be tough business (I know quite a few journos, though most are freelance).... except games journalism obviously, which is a picnic... JOKE. Hope you find somewhere good to work.

  • Headless_Monkey_Boy #23 2 years ago

    @optimusprym8

    What do you mean Jerry Springer isn't real?
    NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooo!!!!!

    Seriously though Jerry Lawton should have been sacked for this and his sensitive Facebook responce

    "These are grown (?!?) men who sit around all day
    playing computer games with one another who've today chosen to enter the real world just long enough to
    complain about my story slamming a Raoul Moat version of Grand Theft Auto! You would think I'd denied
    the Holocaust!!! Think I'll challenge them to a virtual reality duel....stab....I win!!!"


  • RobotRocker #24 2 years ago

    I thought this had been settled out of court the same week it all went down.

    It was, Private Eye had reported it a week after it happened. The damages were probably finalised this week though, hence the regurgitation of the story.

    The Irony is, it was Dirty Des' company that used to run xLeague TV

    If you want irony that could be classed as dangerous to the public health. Have a look at some of the Express'es racial baiting headlines and then some of the titles on Television X or some of the more "top shelf" books he publishes (Asian Babes, anyone?).

    Middle Class England would filp their lid if they ever really found out what the companies behind the Mail and Express published.
    Edited by RobotRocker at 04/10/10 @ 16:27

  • Sir_Razzman #25 2 years ago

    It just sounds like the Daily Star ran out of pictures of tits.

  • asphaltcowboy #26 2 years ago

    "A spokesperson for the media group apologised for the upset and damage caused. It described the newspaper as a mistake."

    Fixed.

  • darleysam #27 2 years ago

    The irony.. wow, Daily Star.

  • dirtysteve #28 2 years ago

    Going to the grieving relative, with the express desire of upsetting them even more, borders on criminal cruelty. Jerry Lawton doesn't seem to realise that he has hurt this person, and it far outweighs his lies. Trying to bring in the holocaust t put things in perspective just makes him seem even more shallow.

  • GamesConnoisseur #29 2 years ago

    A mistake is a mistake if was not intended.

    This smells of very foul stink of purposeful making up dangerous stories to scare people and damage reputations of hard working people, and the journalists are going to do it again.

    In fact it's what they do every day and would get away with it 99% of the times!

    Red rags, how can people justify to themselves if they contribute to this by buying such rubbish in first place and linen the pockets of these gutter crawlers?!!

    Man up and don't descent to the gutters anymore.

  • KungFuSpoon #30 2 years ago

    This sets a dangerous precedent if a ridiculous comic book like The Daily Star can be sued what hope do the more realistic comics like Superman and The New Avengers have?

  • Markitron #31 2 years ago

    @Nuada

    lol, yea. She lives on a trolley underneath my bed :)

  • TheTrueSpin #32 2 years ago

    Dim A as Integer
    Dim B as Integer

    Public Sub()

    A = Money we will make in paper sales if we run this story
    B = Cost we will likely incur if we get taken to court

    If A > B Then
    Call Publish

    else
    Call DoNotPublish

    End Sub
    Edited by TheTrueSpin at 04/10/10 @ 17:54

  • M83J01P97 #33 2 years ago

    And yet the reporter who made up this story is still working for the paper... what a world huh?

  • darkmorgado #34 2 years ago

    Of course he's still working there. They know that this won't be seized on (because it's "just" the games industry), and it's not like they are going to report it in their own paper. Their sales revolve around this sort of gutter-scraping "journalism", and it will continue to do so.

  • PearOfAnguish #35 2 years ago

    "one of the ground rules is that you don't write or publish anything without a source"

    If you're planning on working for a newspaper I suggest you become very familiar with the phrases "a source said", "a friend said" and "we don't reveal our sources".

  • citizenHUNTER #36 2 years ago

    ALL newspapers should be forced to publish a full page, front page apology and retraction every time they breach the rules as badly as this. Many of the people carrying around that story in their minds informing their judgememnt of the games industry won't get to find out the story was utter nonsense any other way.

  • kwospecialk #37 2 years ago

    If you're gonna try and trick people into beleaving a fake product at least come up with a product name that isn't sh*t. GTA Rothbury is clearly a made up name.

  • Quixz #38 2 years ago

    How stupid..

  • bioreit #39 2 years ago

    EDIT: Wow. Much longer than intended. Feel free to skim through/skip to the end/ignore/whatever.

    @ citizenHUNTER

    Damn straight on the full-front page apology. Getting more and more disgusted with the media in general and tabloids specifically. Two big incidents stand out in my mind:

    1. The Sun published a story a few years back about illegal immigrants killing and cooking swans - along the lines of "well, where they're from, it's what they do." Even quoted a police source about the case during they're double-page spread. Funny thing was, the Daily fecking Telegraph were the folks who investigated and found it to be so much horse-shit, even getting a quote from the police force concerned that they had no incident in their records matching that AT ALL. Retraction in The Sun? No - a half-inch correction buried right before the adult ads and lingering around those god-awful (yet curiously amusing) photo enactments of reader's sexual escapades.

    2. A senior police officer ambushing (I think) John Snow on Channel 4 News about inherent racism in the media. The interview started about something else, but the guy managed to lead the topic round to the whole police = racist thugs topic (this was a few years after Stephen Lawrence and other cases) before pulling out a whole ream of missing child cases which the police were desperate for media assistance for, but which were ignored basically because all the kids concerned were non-white. John Snow got completely flustered, stumbled around for a bit and then the police guy got cut off mid-flow by an early ad break. Funny how THAT never made the headlines...

    And lastly, things will never, EVER change as long as the Press Complaints Commission is made up almost entirely by serving editors and senior journalists. Yes, yes, I know you need industry knowledge and awareness, but, bugger me there must be one hell of a lot of former-editors and other types who would be willing and less, shall we say, involved? I love how the press argue that it would water down the PCC's ability to deal with matter properly - wonder if they would feel the same if the Independent Police Complaints Commission was almost entirely run by serving Chief Constables?

    Remember - everyone in this country has someone to answer to (yes, even MPs. Eventually) but journalists basically get away with anything with barely a slapped wrist.

    Oh yeah- and the whole of The Sun's peadophile campaign which resulted in a paediatrician getting done over because someone thought that was just a lesser form of paedophile...
    Edited by bioreit at 04/10/10 @ 21:23

  • oreillymj #40 2 years ago

    The only way to stop this crap is to make newspapers pay out 5*revenue for the week these false stories are printed . Hit them hard in the pocket.

    Then make them print a full front page story explaining how this paper regularly prints total fabricated rubbish, instead of a tiny buried apology.

    Until then, these payouts are minor inconvenience they risk as part of their business strategy.

  • PearOfAnguish #41 2 years ago

    I'd like an eye-for-an-eye rule. Print a front page bollocks extravaganza and you have to print the apology in the same place with the same size headline. Then they can be free to print whatever horseshit they like, except they'll have to make damn sure they actually check the story first, or print the crap in the same tiny spaces they currently use for apologies.

    @bioreit

    Also see: banning Christmas (bullshit - 'Winterval' was a local event to drum up business for a town over winter), banning conker fights (bullshit - the headteacher of one school made it up), banning hanging baskets (bullshit - a council once measured the weight of its baskets to check the supports wouldn't collapse, then put them all back) and on and on it goes.
    Edited by PearOfAnguish at 04/10/10 @ 21:51

  • radioactive_bumfluff #42 2 years ago

    I hate the fucking newspapers, pointless buying them. All the stories they cover were on the internet the day before. They have to make up bullshit stories like this to try and get naive people to buy them!

    I hope to christ that some of the family members of the poor people that were killed also sue the pricks!

  • darkmorgado #43 2 years ago

    Also see: banning Christmas (bullshit - 'Winterval' was a local event to drum up business for a town over winter), banning conker fights (bullshit - the headteacher of one school made it up), banning hanging baskets (bullshit - a council once measured the weight of its baskets to check the supports wouldn't collapse, then put them all back) and on and on it goes.

    Someone's been watching QI

    ;-)

  • Skurmedel #44 2 years ago

    In my country they print the rubbish and accept any fines. The fines are simply too low. They see it as an expense, because printing some fake rubbish about a celebrity being an alcoholic sells enough for them to make a ton of money.

    They haven't gotten to the "The Sun-breaking into people's homes" standard yet, but it is too low already. I don't care about the individual journalists as long as the paper or news outlet is slapped silly.

  • RobotRocker #45 2 years ago

    @Bioreit

    Good post. You can also add the article this year about the swimming pool that put tints on its windows that "blocked out the sun and made it extremely dark" due to "complaints from the Muslim community". Even the BBC and the Guardian reported it this way. Turned out, it was horseshit. There were numbers of complaints from concerned parents regarding pedophiles and women regarding perverts (Including members of the Muslim community) so the council put the tints in.

    Most disturbing of all, not a single journalist actually entered the pool to verify it. It was actually a forum member from Tabloid Watch who was local to the area who went down to the pool, talked to the manager (Who told the forum member that he was shocked when he saw it in the paper because not one journalist contacted him and he would have easily given time between pool sessions for a photographer to take a shot of the tints) and viewed the pool itself, which was nowhere near the "near darkness" as reported.

    Its a disturbing example of how the press presents samples of the truth and claims it as an absolute (e.g. Claiming it was just the Muslims in the headline and burying a mention of "Oh, other people complained too" somewhere in article) to get shock headlines and "outrage".

    But then, I find it funny/pathetic that the so called "PC nanny state" is the exact same one the Tabloids called for in the 80's and 90's. Remember the Bulger murder and the entire Pedo scare? Now you know why we have so much CCTV here. The tabloids and people demanded the surveillance society to catch nonces. And now that it has become an inconvenience to people, they want rid of it again.

    Speaking of the PCC, Boris Johnson (Yes, that one) saying that having Paul Dacre (Current editor of the Daily Mail) in charge of the PCC is like "having regulation of door to door salesmen in the hands of the Boston Strangler" is still the most hilarious and true summary of that organisation.
    Edited by RobotRocker at 04/10/10 @ 23:32

  • PearOfAnguish #46 2 years ago

    "Someone's been watching QI"

    No, someone's been reading (not the tabloids).
    Edited by PearOfAnguish at 04/10/10 @ 23:26

  • MerricK #47 2 years ago

    has anybody read the the daily star? It's awesome.

    the other week they had a "pope fact" in which they claimed the pope could talk welsh has he used to work as a barman in a welsh pub as a 'teen.

    Obivously they had no source or dates or anything to back up this claim of unknown work experience but who'd have known the Pope speaks welsh eh?

  • darkmorgado #48 2 years ago

    the other week they had a "pope fact" in which they claimed the pope could talk welsh has he used to work as a barman in a welsh pub as a 'teen.

    Are you serious?

    Jesus christ, no wonder standards of education are slipping if people are fed that bollocks as fact.

  • PearOfAnguish #49 2 years ago

    To be fair, I don't think anybody who buys the Daily Star believes anything that's printed in there, and if they do then we probably haven't lost the next Stephen Hawking to nonsense "news" and celebrity upskirt shots.
    Edited by PearOfAnguish at 05/10/10 @ 01:13

  • DrStrangelove #50 2 years ago

    @sfp_noodle
    "I'm currently studying Journalism at Uni and one of the ground rules is that you don't write or publish anything without a source. Why the hell this was still published is beyond me."

    I don't understand the association between journalism and a tabloid. It's like saying you study theology and can't believe how undecently the Mexican Mafia behaves. If you want to understand tabloids, I guess you should study psychology or psychoanalysis.

  • metalangel #51 2 years ago

    Oh well, maybe someone will make a Moat mod for the PC version?

  • irve77 #52 2 years ago

    good one ... i read this story when it was published ( the star is only 10p .. don't judge me )

    i laughed on the train at just how ridiculous it was.

    i'm amazed that the Daily Mail didn't get in on the action too !

  • Headless_Monkey_Boy #53 2 years ago

    I think the express did, though no one read it (or thought it was worth commenting on)

  • TVoJ #54 2 years ago

    I just can't wait to see the charachter Rockstar comes up with to depict Richard Desmond in GTA V.
    I bet you as the protaganist will be sent to off some weasley tabloid jurno for the "Daily Scab", making him shit in his pants before throwing him outta a 50 floor scraper. I call dibbs on him being called Dick Diamond.

  • BoffBoff #55 2 years ago

    Wasn't all this a result of a mock-up somebody did for the image challenge on B3TA?
    I'm sure I remember seeing it on there.

  • glaeken #56 2 years ago

    Yeah I believe someone knocked up a dummy GTA Moat cover and that was doing the rounds on the internet when a Star reporter saw it and thought it was real. How anyone could think it was real is beyond me. I actually have a hard time believing someone could be that stupid so I think they probably knew the story was fake the whole time but decided to print it anyway.

  • darkmorgado #57 2 years ago

    I love how, on the Daily Star website where they apologise for the mistake, the button at the bottom is labelled Want more "news"?

    As if they are actually admitting that the concept of calling their publication a news source is a joke.