Rockstar is sponsoring Druski's comedy show now, with Ali G, to sell the GTA 6 Ultimate Edition
The latest Coulda Been Records special is "presented by Grand Theft Auto 6". Rockstar paying for a creator spot is new, and so is the audience it's chasing.
By Wes Calloway
If you watched the newest episode of Druski's Coulda Been Records, you got a GTA 6 ad in the middle of it. The special is an "Old Heads" audition episode hosted by Ali G, Sacha Baron Cohen's character, and it comes with a sponsor read: "This episode of Coulda Been Records auditions is presented by Grand Theft Auto 6 from Rockstar Games."
The read plugs the Ultimate Edition pre-order on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, and the link's in the video description too.
Why this is a bit unusual
Rockstar doesn't really do creator sponsorships. Its marketing has mostly been the trailers, the occasional screenshot drop, and lately some very expensive real-world stunts. Paying a comedy YouTuber for an ad read is a different kind of spend, and it's aimed at a different crowd.
Coulda Been Records is a parody record label show. Its viewers are comedy and music fans, plenty of whom don't follow games news at all. GTA BOOM says the series regularly pulls millions of views an episode. That's the point: by now, everyone who reads gaming sites already knows GTA 6 comes out on 19 November. The people Rockstar still has to reach are the ones who'll buy one game this year and need reminding which one.
Why the Ultimate Edition
It's the one Take-Two wants you to buy. Strauss Zelnick has said the $99.99 Ultimate Edition is outselling the standard one, and every Ultimate sale is twenty dollars more than a standard one. Pushing it in an ad aimed at casual buyers is a pretty direct way to keep that going.
The awkward bit
The Druski and Ali G collab itself got some backlash online when it was first announced earlier this month, for reasons that have nothing to do with GTA. Rockstar hasn't commented on the sponsorship, and there's no sign yet of whether this is a one-off or the start of a wider creator push. If more of these show up before launch, it'll tell you Rockstar's chasing the people who don't already care.
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