GTA V robbery in London results in three teenagers arrested

Three teenagers have been arrested after allegedly assaulting and robbing a man making his way home from the midnight launch of Grand Theft Auto V in London.

The victim, who is 23 and hasn't been named, was hit with a brick and stabbed, with his assailants nicking his phone, his watch and his box-fresh copy of GTA V.

Aged just 18, 17 and 15, the three youths, also unnamed, are being questioned by detectives at a police station in north London, the Telegraph reports. "The motive for the attack is unclear at this stage," a spokesperson for the Met Police told the newspaper.

The unlucky gamer is still in hospital but is said to be in stable condition. The attack took place after he bought his copy of the new crim-ulator at the Colindale Asda near Brent Cross at 1.20am yesterday.

The game went on sale at midnight on Tuesday morning after many months of breathless anticipation from the series' millions of fans around the world.

It was preceded by superb reviews from almost every quarter -- it has a metascore of 98 on Xbox 360 and 97 on PS3. Some publications that objected, however, to its unremitting sexist jokes and extreme violence -- including our sister site GameSpot -- have been the subject of intense hostility from fans.

GameSpot's reviewer Carolyn Petit took the brunt of much of this moronic abuse, but hearteningly received much support too, as she acknowledges in this remarkably chipper tweet.

The game has also appeared on front pages after being tenuously linked to the recent shooting in Washington DC and the decline of civilisation in general.

Have you managed to purchase a copy of GTA without incident? What do you think of it? Are you capable of simultaneously appreciating its masterful design and wonderful characters and also wishing it might be a bit more open minded? Let me know in the comments, or on our safe-house Facebook page.