The video game Grand Theft Auto V is nearly eight years old and still just as popular as ever. The crime-filled simulator allows anyone to prowl the streets of Los Santos and become the criminal (or hero) of their dreams. Private servers, where groups of players can gather, have allowed users to create their own communities of rendered mischief.
FiveM is the most popular tool for adding mods to GTA V, allowing those on their own servers the ability to affix whatever they want to their own games. One of the mods is catered specifically for roleplaying, allowing users the ability to create their own custom characters instead of the usual protagonists. This new way to play created an opportunity for streamers, who could create their own characters and live out their lives to entertain fans.
The most popular GTA V roleplay server is NoPixel, a community consisting entirely of streamers that exploded in popularity in February 2019. In that month alone, 58.2 million people watched GTA V streams, according to data collection site NewZoo. Since then, the server has maintained its popularity, launching a 3.0 update in late February which catapulted GTA V to the top of Twitch's games with over 400,000 concurrent viewers.
GTA 5 is the #1 game on Twitch for the launch of NoPixel 3.0 GTA RP. an entirely community developed and maintained GTA mod with no help from Rockstar is keeping the game more relevant than ever pic.twitter.com/BGrVk8iLxD
— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) February 5, 2021
The appeal of watching streamers interact with each other in a virtual sandbox is the same as watching a television show, allowing viewers to become invested in its lore and characters. One day you can watch a police officer shoot a man in wheelchair and the next you can watch a mobster fall off a building — all with added commentary from Twitch chat. Similar to the Dream SMP, a private Minecraft server consisting of streamers, keeping up with the lore and the day-to-day activity is part of the fun.
To keep up with NoPixel 3.0, the subreddit LiveStreamFails is constantly dominated by clips from the server. Hundreds of clips get posted weekly, ranging from robbers discussing a heist to streamers breaking character, making it the best way to keep up with what is going on.
The NoPixel server was started by streamer Koil, who is the owner and lead developer. Anyone can apply on the NoPixel website but you need to follow a series of rules in order to maintain the immersion of roleplay. Potential players need to be 18-years of age and up, have a working microphone and you must stay in character at all times. Breaking Twitch's Terms of Service or "breeding toxicity in any platform" can get you a ban from the server ranging from one day for a first offense to a permanent suspension.
There are over 3,000 different streamers currently registered as members of the NoPixel 3.0 community, with oftentimes over a hundred streaming at the same time. Each one of these streamers has their own character, which can be as mundane as a truck delivery person or as outlandish as a professional gambler. To keep these personalities virtually safe, police officers patrol the streets and have their own dispatch system that allows them to track where players are going. EMTs and doctors help fix wounded players, creating a full ecosystem where you never have to stop roleplaying.
With this many entertainers in one virtual playground, there is bound to be disorder. Most recently, some of the server's most popular streamers have received bans.
The most notorious streamer on NoPixel 3.0 has to be Félix Lengyel, known as XQC. The former Overwatch esports player turned full-time streamer played as Jean Paul, a French criminal constantly at odds with the police. Since starting to play a month ago, he's engaged in vehicle deathmatches with other players, gotten involved in street races, and generally disregarded authority. In March, he received a 14-day suspension for utilizing a glitch that allowed him to sneak a gun into a police station after being virtually arrested. He apologized, saying on stream that "I shouldn't have done it, and I would be one of the first people to get really mad." Though he briefly showed up on the server after his ban, it was just a glitch and his ban was still active.
Fellow Twitch streamer Tyler Niknam, known online as TrainWrecksTV, received a permanent suspension for "metagaming," or using the knowledge he learned outside of the game to impact the roleplay server, in early March. His response on Twitter was that "this was just an attempt to protect the monopolization of power in the game for select streamers."
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