People have been speculating for some time now that the GTA franchise is well suite for a ground breaking and World of Warcraft shattering MMO. AS GTA IV began development, Rockstar have firmly denied any interest in doing such a MMO, as they had their plate more than full with the exploits of Nico and creating a compelling game. Now, they are in the home stretch, ready to ship the most expected game of 2008 to gamers worldwide so it's only natural for the rumors regarding the GTA MMO to begin surfacing again.

The question was too good to pass up for the guys over at 1UP when they sat down with Sam Houser, the boss of Rockstar. Like any good game company executive when talking about future projects, he played coy saying things like "a subscription-based Grand Theft Auto-type game... is very, very doable and is a very, very compelling proposition" and after that "the combination of what we're doing with multiplayer and what we're doing with the episodes is the start of us putting our toes in this water and seeing how our audience... adapts to online". Which is all just teasing, mainly, as no clear confirmation can be extracted out of these quotes. But clearly the Rockstar boss can see the appeal that a GTA MMO could have.

The issue is that such a game is already in development and closer to release in the form of All Points Bulletin. Ironically, it is developed by Realtime Worlds, a company founded by Dave Jones, one of the creators of GTA. It will be a MMO that claims to "grindless" while also offering an urban setting complete with cops, gangs and weapons that is pretty much all that a GTA MMO could be.

Players will be able to decide the length of their hair and whether they'd like to sport a nice looking scar on their left cheek. Even though customization is the main concept here, all creations will look as close to real as possible. Tattoos, decals and badges will be worn by members of the same gang to distinguish them from other players. Cars will also get custom paint jobs and custom parts and while GTA IV aims to sell the player the music he listens to in-game APB has a partnership with last.fm that allows the player to select the music he likes to listen to while in the game.

If All Points Bulletin delivers on all its promises, how much traction will a GTA MMO get? Is there space for two gang based, turf warfare realistic MMO's on the market? Send us your opinions.