GTA 6 revives a 40-year-old Miami argument: the debate that started with Miami Vice
In the 1980s, Miami leaders asked Miami Vice's producer to remove 'vice' from the show's title. Four decades later, the city of Miami has asked Rockstar to keep 'Vice City' off its GTA 6 banners. Axios Miami reports the same argument is being had again as Rockstar markets the game across Miami-Dade — with up to $4 million on the table for Miami Beach and a county airport plan its sheriff still opp
The short answer
Miami has run this argument before. Axios Miami reports that when Miami Vice went into production in the 1980s, elected leaders worried the show would advertise the city's crime problem and asked producer Michael Mann to remove the word "vice" from its title — a request recorded at the time by the Miami Herald. Four decades later the same word is back on the agenda, now attached to Grand Theft Auto VI: the city of Miami has asked Rockstar to keep "Vice City" off the banners it is preparing to allow downtown, and Mayor Eileen Higgins has said why in as many words — "We don't like being referred to as 'Vice City'."
What Miami was afraid of then
Axios puts the episode in context. In the 1980s Miami was living through "the worst of times," as local historian Paul George describes it to the outlet — the Mariel boatlift, the McDuffie riots, contract killings, a police force under scrutiny. The fear was that "Vice" would glamorise "the bad things". The show did the opposite of what its objectors predicted: credited with helping save South Beach, it pulled tourism south and put the Art Deco District, the Miami River and neighbourhoods such as Little Havana under an international spotlight.
As George puts it, "it glamorized the whole area. I think it gave people some sort of weird sense of pride in the place" (Axios).
The second round looks familiar
The modern version of the argument is spread across three governments, and Axios lines them up in one place. Miami Beach commissioners have backed advertising on the beach, with a deal worth up to $4 million according to Miami New Times. The city of Miami is preparing permits for banners on private buildings downtown — around $1 million, by one commissioner's estimate — and has insisted the words "Vice City" stay off the artwork.
Miami-Dade County has been in talks about marketing at county properties, including Miami International Airport. That idea has been publicly attacked by Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz and Commissioner J.C. Bermudez, who argue that a government should not lend its facilities and its brand to a game built around criminal activity, including violence against police officers.
Supporters of the campaigns make a narrower case: the attention is coming anyway, and the money can be taken without endorsing the game.
Why the comparison holds — and where it breaks
Both rounds start from the same premise: a version of Miami the city does not control is about to be sold to the world, and the choice is whether to fight it or tax it. In 2026 Miami can charge Rockstar per banner and pay for a public park with the money — a reversal Axios underlines, since Rockstar used to borrow Miami's image and now the city borrows Rockstar's.
Where the parallel frays is the medium. Miami Vice was a show an audience watched; GTA VI is a game an audience operates, with violence as a mechanic rather than a backdrop. George tells Axios he understands why the police object, especially if the game paints the city in a more cartoonish light than the show did.
His own reading of the effect, though, is closer to 1984 than to the sheriff's: "I think what it's gonna do is draw additional attention to Miami. The big question is, negative or positive? In the hands of young people, it's probably going to be positive" (Axios).
What comes next
GTA VI launches on November 19, 2026 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Miami's banner ordinance still needs a second reading, the beach campaign is pencilled in from October 15 to the end of the year, and the county-level airport idea has never been approved. Forty years after Miami Vice, the question put to the city is the one Michael Mann heard first: whether the Miami the world pays to see is the Miami the city wants to sell.
