Los Santos online is a Hobbesian world. I have been killed at construction sites from well placed snipers. I have died when other players affixed magnetic sticky bombs to the cars I have stolen. I have been killed in the country and in the city, in warehouses and in open fields.

One of the joys of GTA is that there are no significant consequences. When you die, you respawn. The only penalty for death is that GTA dollars are taken out of your in-game account. If you die enough times, all the money you “earned” is eventually depleted.

It creates an un-virtuous cycle for rookies like me. The players with more money purchase better weapons, better cars and better body armor. Meanwhile I was still riding around in my barely modified firebird (in the game it’s known as the Imponte Ruiner) like a sitting duck.

The worst is the bounty system. When a bounty is placed on your head, you appear to the other players in the game as a red dot on the GPS mini-map on the left hand corner of your screen. This means that everyone else cruising the city has an added incentive to murder you.