Quote Originally Posted by falados
Man, I said that same thing (or meant that) in a thread in general gaming about GTA III, and got yelled at by GundamGuy, who apparently disagreed with me.

http://www.emuparadise.org/vbulletin...7&page=5&pp=15
No, that was me.

GTA opened developers eyes to open-ended gameplay. Perhaps they weren't the first to bring it to the table, but when they brought it, they brought it with style, and of course it's style was aped. If it's sucessful, then of course it's gonna be copied.