To follow Stockholm Pride’s mission to spread love and equality – we created a digital pride parade inside one of the most violent games in the world – Grand Theft Auto 5 (GTA 5). The Los Santos Pride parade – named after the fictional city within the game – was free to download, so every player could have their own digital pride parade inside the game. The modification (a plugin that modifies the game) was created together with real Grand Theft Auto 5 fans across the world and was launched with a trailer on Youtube and Facebook. To honour the victims of the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, the whole parade was made indestructible. Why? Because love will always triumph over hate.

In order to create Los Santos Pride, we searched in fan forums for people to join us in the creation of the pride parade mod. In collaboration with some of the most talented GTA 5 amateur code scripters and texture designers we started creating Los Santos Pride. We created new cars, custom made clothes, rainbow flags, face paint and signs saying “Love comes in all colors”. We also included GTA 5’s main characters Trevor, Michael and Franklin in the parade. Towards the end of the scripting process, the horrific shooting in Orlando left 49 people dead and over 53 others injured. Therefore we decided to make the parade indestructible – not to moralize over gaming violence but to rather show that love always triumph hate.

The mod was released via a video trailer on Youtube and Facebook, featuring legendary BBC1 voice Pete Tong and the music from Swedish producer Alesso.

Los Santos Pride instantly sparked a debate in the comment sections on Youtube and Facebook, where thousands of gamers gathered to discuss equality and representation. Many of the comments revealing the already existing homophobia within the community, and the need for initiatives like this. Hours after the launch international media started reporting on Los Santos Pride. From respected gaming media such as Kotaku, Polygon and PC Gamer to news outlets such as BBC, Metro and NBC. The campaign has had a significant spread on Twitter and Facebook, ticking up to over 35,000 social media shares. Many prolific companies and personalities have expressed their support for Los Santos Pride, such as YouTube via their Twitter, BBC tech show presenter Kate Russell and creators of GTA Rockstar Entertainment.

+6 million views on Youtube and Facebook combined

+7000 downloads of the mod

+35 000 shares in social media

Visits from 133 countries