As it currently stands, the Grand Theft Auto game franchise is the fourth best-selling series of all time. Having sold over 220 million copies so far, the grand scale of Grand Theft Auto's worlds and the fact that they let players do anything from taking in gorgeous virtual views to robbing banks with friends online have made the games massively popular. But very few people know of the series' controversial beginnings.

When the first game was released it was rated for adult audiences but some concerned citizens – including now disbarred lawyer Jack Thompson – were worried that Grand Theft Auto would fall into the hands of children and that the violent gameplay would corrupt them. Thompson and co. campaigned aggressively to have the game banned in the United States and their battle with its developers eventually became the subject of a book called "Jacked: The unauthorised behind-the-scenes story of Grand Theft Auto" by David Kushner.

Although the credibility of the book has been questioned in the past (Rockstar Games had no hand in the writing of the book and it's also written from Thompson's perspective), it was the basis of a film by the BBC called The Gamechangers. The Gamechangers, which features Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe (as Rockstar president Sam Houser) and Bill Paxton (as Jack Thompson) aired last night and predictably the film has not gone down well with the wider gaming community, film critics, nor the people who actually made Grand Theft Auto.

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The most scathing review of The Gamechangers by far, came from Rockstar Games themselves. In the above tweet, they told the BBC directly that The Gamechangers is "random, made up bollocks", also asking whether (British comedy puppet) Basil Brush was busy.

Meanwhile, Brian Baglow, who worked on PR for the first Grand Theft Auto and Mike Dailly, who was a developer for the game, both took issue with the BBC's portrayal of actual game development. Not only did the 90 minute film take a long time to mention that an entire development team made the game (rather than one man by himself) but the film spoke about developers "as though they are grunts in a room somewhere".

The backlash against the film from Rockstar is unsurprising given that earlier this year their parent company Take-Two filed a lawsuit against the BBC, saying that they had no involvement in the film's making and that their goal was to "ensure that [their] trademarks are not misused".

At the time, the company also said that they had tried "multiple times to resolve this matter with the BBC" but it was without "any meaningful resolution", something which now appears to be reflected in the backlash to the film. It's unclear whether the BBC will try this again, perhaps working with Rockstar in the future to make amends, but for now it is at least a warning bell for others attempting to chronicle the gaming industry's history.

Source: Rockstar Games, Brian Baglow, Mike Dailly